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AUTHOR Pincher, Cameron, Ed.; And OthersTITLE Higher Education in Georgia: Assessing the

Institutional Effectiveness of Student Retention.Proceedings of the Conference (4th, Athens, Georgia,December 1-2, 1986).

INSTITUTION Georgia Univ., Athens. Inst. of Higher Education.PUB DATE 87NOTE 111p.; Paper collected as part of the American

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EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Academic Persistence; Allied Health Occupations;

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ABSTRACTAssessing the effectiveness of institutional efforts

in student retention in Georgia higher education is addressed inpapers from a conference sponsored by the University of Georgia.Included are Patrick T. Terenzini's keynote address, "What ResearchTells Us about Student Retention" and an address by Harry Carter,"Student Retention as a Measure of Institutional Quality." From sevenpanels on retention, the following papers/authors are represented:"College Entrance Requirements That Make Sense" (Nathaniel Pugh,Jr.); "The Special Problems of Retaining Technical Students"(Jennifer Coplin); "Problems in Defining Vocational-TechnicalRetention Statewide" (Fred E. Kiehle, III); "Principles of Learningand Development: Can They Help in Retraining Students?" (CameronPincher); "Placement and Retention in Remedial/Developmental Programsin the SREB States" (Ansley A. Abraham, Jr.); "Factors InfluencingRetention in Private Four-Year Colleges" (M. Willisia Holbrook);"Retention Programs That Work in Private Two-Year Colleges" (RonaldWeitman); "Retention Issues in Medical and Health Education: TheAcademic Health Center" (Jean A. Morse); "A Retention Model forMinority Students in Allied Health Professions" (Lynda D. Woodruff,Delmas J. Allen); "Institutional Studies on Retention: A Taxonomy"(Larry Jones). (SW)

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3

HIGHER EDUCATION IN GEORGIA:

ASSESSING THEINSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

OF STUDENT RETENTION

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH CONFERENCE

DECEMBER 1-2, 1986

EDITORS

Cameron FincherLarry G. JonesJoyce Placek

SPONSORED BY

THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND PLANNING

INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

CENTER FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION

4

Copyright 0 1987 by the Institute of Higher Education,The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602

5

M4.11010MIAMII

The theme of the fourth annual con-ference on research :n postsecondary educa-tion was, "Assessing the Institutional Effec-tiveness of Student Retention." The con-ference was held on December 1-2, 1986 atthe Georgia Center for Continuing Educationand was sponsoredin cooperation with theUniversity System o Georgiaby the Univer-sity of Georgia's Institute of Higher Educa-tion, Office of Institutional Research andPlanning, and Center for Continuing Educa-tion, sponsors of the three previous confer-ences.

The conference was attended by atleast 100 participants who represented overforty different postsecondary institutions oreducational agencies in Georgia or the south-ern region. The keynote speaker for the con-ference was Dr. Patrick Terenzini, a nationallyknown scholar and researcher on studentachievement and persistence in college, whojoined the Institute of Higher Education inJuly 1986 as professor of higher education. Inhis keynote address Dr. Terenzini provided anexcellent summary and interpretation of thepublished research on student retention andcalled attention to the remarkable stability ofstudent retention rates throughout the 20thcentury.

Other program participants discussed incommendable fashion the difficulties of estab-lishing high school graduation and collegeentrance requirements that will ensure betterstudent retention at the postsecondary level;the special problems and issues that are in-volved in retaining students in vocationaltechnical programs; the unusual difficulties ofstudent retention in programs of preparationfor allied health professions; and the parti-cular problems of placement and retention indevelopmental studies.

Two other program participants gavesuperb insight into the nature and content of

Preface

formal retention courses that are effective inretaining students. Another panel of expe..-ienced practitioners discussed, with manyhelpful suggestions, institutional character-istics and conditions that affect student reten-tion in private colleges and technical schools.Two well-known institutional researchers gavethe benefit of their long experience in a"mini-workshop" on how to conduct institu-tional studies on student retention.

In the closing sessi3n of the conference,Dr. Hairy Carter, vice president for academicaffairs and acting president at Georgia South-ern, emphasized the importance of studentretention as a measure of institutional quality.In a concerted zffort to advise and to assiststudents experiencing academic difficulties,Geoi3ia Southern was able to increase signfi-cantly its retention of "new first-time, full-time freshmen."

The editors cf the proceedings are mostappreciative cf the valuable cociaibutions bythose who helped plan the fourth annual re-search conference, who prepared papers orpanel presentations, who served as chairs ormoderators for various sessions, and whoparticipated actively by raising many of theright questions precisely the right time. Theeditors are also indebted to Donna Davis forher preparation of camera-ready proceedingstwice within the span of a single year.

To place the annual research confer-ence on a fall schedule, both the third and thefourth annual conferences were held duringthe calendar year of 1986. Thus, the fifthannual research conference is scheduled forNovember 30-December 1st, 1987 and invita-tions to the conference will be issued as soonas an appropriate theme has been developed.

Cameron FincherLarry G. JonesJoyce Placek

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KEYNOTE ADDRESS PAGE

What Research Tells Us About Student RetentionPatrick T. Terenzini 1

Professor of Higher EducationInstitute of Higher EducationUniversity of Georgia

FIRST PANEL ON RETENTION

Preparing Students for College:Priorities for Progress

Joseph L. Marks 13Southern Regional Education Board

College Entrance RequirementsThat Make Sense

Nathaniel Pigh, Jr.Georgia Southern College

SECOND PANEL ON RETENTION

Is There a Special Nature To Student RetentionIn Postsecondary Technical Education Institutions?

Michael McCordAthens Tech

The Special Problems of RetainingTechnical Students

Jennifer Cop linSavannah Technical Schooi

15

29

32

Problems in Defining Vocational-TechnicalRetention Statewide

Fred E. Kiehle, III 33State Board of PostsecondaryVocational Education

Another State's Perspective in Technical StudeotsDiana JosephGreenville Technical CollegeGreenville, South Carolina

37

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Con'd) PAGE

THIRD PANEL ON RETENTION

Retention Programs That WorkJohn SallstromGeorgia College

39

Retention Programs That WorkFran Rauschenburg 41University of Georgia

EVENING PRESENTATION ON RETENTION

Principles of Learning and Development:Can They Help in Retaining Students?

Cameron FincherInstitute of Higher Education

FOURTH PANEL ON RETENTION

Placement and Retention in Remedial/DevelopmentalPrograms in the SREB States

Ansley A. Abraham, Jr.Southern Regional Education Board

FIFTH PANEL ON RETENTION

47

53

Factors Influencing Retention in PrivateFour-Year Colleges

M. Willisia Holbrook 59Wake Forest University

Retention Programs That Work in PrivateTwo-Year Colleges

Ronald WeitmanTruett McConnell College

63

Rates of Student Retention in De Kalb Tech ProgramsBerman E. Johnson 67De Kalb Area Technical School

8

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Con'd) PAGE

SIXTH PANEL ON RETENTION

Retention Issues in Medical and Health Education:The Academic Health Center

Jean A. Morse 77Medical College of Georgia

Conceptual Aspects and Practical ApproachesTo Student Retention in Health Professions

Freddie S. Hepner 81Armstrong State College

A Retention Model for Minority StudentsIn Allied Health Professions

Lynda D. Woodruff and Delmas J. Allen 84Georgia State University

SEVENTH PANEL ON RETENTION

Institutional Studies on Retention:A Taxonomy

Larry Jones 87Institutional Research and Planning

SACS' Effectiveness Criterion: A Self-AnalysisBased Upon the "Must" Statements

Glynton Smith and James E. Prather 93Georgia State University

LUNCHEON PRESENTATION ON RETENTION

Student Retention as a Mcasure ofInstitutional Quality

Harry Carter 99Vice President for Academic Affairs and

Acting PresidentGeorgia Southern College

APPENDIX A 103

9

Keynote Address

WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT STUDENT RETENTION

Patr ick T. TerenziniProfessor of Higher EducationInstitute of Higher Educat'on

More than a decade ago, Sandy Astinsaid that "Dropping out of college is a littlelike the weather: something everybody talksabout but no or e does anything about"(Astin, 1975; p.1). Clearly, times have chang-ed. Our presence here today, and that of peo-ple like us at similar conferences around thecountry, are evidence of that change. Today,retention is big business, and it's about time.The motives behind our keenand recentinterest in student retention are open to somequestion, however, for there is a clear correla-tion between the rate of decline in the num-ber of traditional high school graduates andthe fervor with which we pursue ways ofincreasing institutional retention rates. Butcorrelation is not causation, and even if itwere, in this instance I am not too bothered.American higher education is, I think, some-times like the U.S. Congress: doing the wrongthings for the right reasons, and the rightthings for the wrong reasons. At least (and atlast) we are now doing the right thingsforwhatever reasons.

Today, I would like to explore withyou five questions relating to college studentretention:

1. Why is retention in Georgia, and else-where in the South, worth worryingabout?

2. How much of a problem is it?

3. What does the research on retention andattrition tell us?

4. What does that body of research not tellus (and why)?

5. Where do we go from here?

Before we take up these questions,however, let us be clear that attrition is notnecessarily a bad thing or contrary to the bestinterests of institutions or students. Whatconstitutes "dropping out" is, in fact, amatter of perspective. From the individual'spoint of view, withdrawal from a collegiateprogram may reflect the fact that theindividual got from the institution exactlywhat he or she had come for. Instudying attrition and retention, we must addto our conventional typology of "persisters,""dropouts," and "stopouts" a category for"attainers": those who persist and succeed,but whose definitions of "persistence" and"success" do not include completion of atraditional certificate or degree program.

Similarly, students must accept (and wemust give them) some responsibility fer theirown educations. We must take greater care toinclude in our research measures of studenteffort (see Pace, 1984). We must differentiatebetween students who withdraw after makinga good-faith effort and those who withdraw inthe face of self-induced failure.

From an institutional perspective, onemust take into account institutional mission.For example, I don't think we'd want to labelas "dropouts" those students who transferfrom a two- to a four-year college, nor to in-fer that, somehow, the two-year institution isnot doing its job. Indeed, under certain condi-Vons, a student's transferwhether from atwo- or four-year institution, may very wellconstitute both an individual and institutionalachievement, a cause for happiness and pride,rather than concern.

I0

2

With the understanding that "attrition"is a matter of definition and that we mustexercise care with our categories and terms,let us turn to the first of our five questions.

1. Why is retention in Georgia and the South-east worth worrying about?

AU of us are familiar with the standardarguments for attending to student retention:the pool of high school graduates is shrinking;minority college student enrollment levels areno longer climbing; a student retained is astudent you don't have to recruit; a pennysaved is a penny earned, and so on. it costs asmuch to recruit, admit, enroll, register, advise,counsel, house, teach, and so on the studentwho drops out after a year as it does to pro-vide the same services to continuing students.But there are other compelling reasons in theState of Georgia, in particular, and in theSoutheast in general. A study for the Gover-nor's Committee on Postsecondary Educationfound that, in 1980, the postsecondary edu-cation participation rate for the South overallwas 18 percent below the national average.In Georgia, the rate was 25 percent below thenational rate. The report noted that "Amongthe fourteen individual Southern states . . .,Georgia's rate ranked tenth (and) was higherthan that of only one of the five states alongits borders (Kiehle, undated, p. iv).

The picture was not much differentwhen degree completion rates were compared.Georgia's college graduation rate was 20 per-cent lover than the national average, placingthe state ninth among the fourteen Southernstates and ahead of only one adjacent state(Kiehle, undated, p. iv). The reportconcluded:

Overall . . . the findings . . . do notseem to describe a state which is pre-pared to compete effectively in a futurewhere the importance of a trained andeducated work force is growing (Kiehle,undated, p. iv).

Because of these comparatively lowparticipation rates, one might reasonably ar-

Terenzini

gue that increasing college student retention ieven more important in Georgia than it is inother states where high school degree com-pletion and college participation rates arehighei. Retention is intimately related notonly to the ability of our colleges and univer-sities to maintain current enrollment andfunding levels, but also to the state's pros-pects for future economic growth. As theGovernor's Committee report notes, "the tra-ditional attractions (of the South) to businessand industrya nonunion work force, lowwages, low t.ixes, and a good climateareoften an inadequate inducement to the newindustries emerging from the recent and con-tinuing advances in technolo," (Kiehle, un-dated, p. 1). Finally, and perhaps most im-portantly, level of education is inextricablytied to the quality of the social, cultt'ral andpolitical life that a people enjoy. The DarkAges were more than a metaphor.

2. How much of a problem is studentretention?

The question of volume is a reasonableone, for we seek some sense of how we aredoing relative to others, some sense ofwhether we should be worried about reten-tion rates on our own campuses.

Table 1 offers a comparison of one-yearretention rates among first-time, full-timestudents in University System of Georgiainstitutions and nationally. As can be seenconsistent with national data, retention ishigher at the universities than at state col-leges, and both have higher retention ratesthan the junior colleges, regardless of thecategory of student. It is worth noting that inthe university and senior college groups, theone-year retention rates for Black first-timefreshmen were generally greater than thosefor all other students Among the juniur col-leges, however, this relation was reversed. Asthe students progress to the higher class levels(sophomores and juniors), however, retentionrates for Black students lag behind those of allother students. This phenomenon warrants, 1believe, careful and immediate study at bothinstitutional and state levels.

11

Terenzini

It is also worth noting that the averageone-year retention rates at the universitiesexceed those of four-year colleges at the na-tional level, while the rates for Georgia'ssenior and junior colleges are slightly belowthe national average. Perhaps most revealing,however, is the range in the one-year reten-tion rates across the institutions in each sec-tor. The variation is considerable.

Table 2 arrays national retention andgraduation rates at different types of institu-tions over varying periods of time: the fresh-man year, two years and graduation in threeand five years. Three things are strikingabout these data: first, the one-year retentionrates for different cohorts of students areapproximately the same, suggesting reason-able stability over time.

Second, notice the five-year graduationrates for four-year institutions. The figuresreported here are somewhat higher than thosein other studies, but the point is clear: gra-duation four years after matriculation canhardly be considered the norm. Indeed, whilewe used to believe That the student who failedto complete a degree in four years was aty-pical, in fact, an entering freshman was abouias likely to drop out as complete a degreeprogram. This continues to be the case.

Third, while the tabled figures are for"retention," we can derive some interesting"attrition" statistics by subtracting the reten-tion figures from 100 percent. When we dothat, it is clear that, for both two- and fouryear institutions, attrition is largely a first-year phenomenon. Using the public four-yearinstitution figures to illustrate, we can seethat on the average 33 percent of our fresh-men do not return for their sophomore year,compared with a five-year attrition rate ofabout 47 percent. Put another way: 70 per-cent of those who will leave over a five-yearperiod will withdraw before the second year.Among two-year institutions, the situation iseven more dramatic: 46 percent attrition inthe first year, compared to 59 percent attri-tion over a three-year period. That's nearly 80percent o all dropouts leaving in the first

12

3

year. The message is clear: if you wish toincrease your institution's retention rates,concentrate your efforts on the first year.

It is worth noting that national reten-tion rates have been virtually invariant for thelast century. World War II caused a drop inthe trend line, followed by a sharp but short-lived rise occasioned by the al. Bill, but withthose exceptions, the national degree comple-tion rate at baccalaureate degree granting in-stitutions has held virtually constant at about50 pers.ent since 1880 (Tinto, 1982). It willbe interesting to see over the nest decadewhether actions taken in the heat of our cur-rent national concern with retention produceany appreciable change in that historcalpattern.

3. What does the research on retention and at-trition tell us?

In answering this question, I will focuson those variables that the research indicateshave some socially, educationa!ly or admini-stratively significant role in student retention.In so doing, I will not be mentioning manyvariables that have statistically significantassociations with retention, but which are, inmy view, substantively less important, if nottrivial.

Of all pre-college student characterist-ics, the single-best predictor of subsequentattendance patterns is high school achieve-ment. Such a conclusion should come as nosurprise: high school achievement representsan index of performance in an educationalsetting with many of the same social and aca-demic requirements as college, and it reflectsa student's ability to meet the available com-petition. The student who succeeds in onesetting, in general, can be expected to succeedin another, similar setting. Academic aptitudeis also consistently and reliably related tosubsequent attendance behaviors, but its in-fluence is less pronounced.

It should be noted, however, that manystudents who withdraw from college haveachievement and aptitude scores that would

4 Terenzir1i

TABLE 1

COMPARATiVE ONE-YEAR RETENTION RATES OFFIRST-TIME, FULL-TIME STUDENTS AT USGA

INSTITUTIONS AND NATIONALLY

University System uf Georgia(percentages)

Category UniversitiesSenior

CollegesJunior

Colleges

NationalAverage

4-Yr 2-Yr

Developmental StudiesBlacks 78 58 46All Others 73 52 47Total 75 55 47

Range 68-85% 45-62 35-55

Regularly Admitted

Blacks 80 71 53All Others 79 62 60Total 80 63 60

Range 71-83% 57-76 47-69

All First-time, Full-time

Blacks 79 61 48All Others 79 59 55Total 79 60 54 66 55

Total Range 70-83% 53-73 39-64

Source: H.R. Pounds & W.K. Cheek. Planning for student retention in the university systemof Georgia. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Southern Associationfor Institutional Research, Virginia Beach, 1985.

13

Terenzini 5

TABLE 2

RETENTION AND GRADUATION BY TYPE OF INSTITUTION,NUMBER OF INSTITUTIONS REPORTING AND

PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS WHG ENTERED AS FRESHMEN

Institution1975-76

N %

Retention After One Year1976-77 1977-78

N % N %

2 -Y ear Public 74 55 82 55 92 532-Year Private 27 63 29 64 30 63

Nonsectarian 12 63 12 62 12 64Religious 15 61 17 65 18 62

4-Year Public 99 68 103 67 104 664-Year Private 207 71 222 71 227 71

Nonsectarian 66 73 72 73 76 74Religious 141 71 150 70 151 68

Retention After Two Years1975-77 1976-78

Graduation3 Yrs 5 Yrs

Institution N % N % N % N %

2-Year Public 188 412-Year Private 46 61

Nonsectarian 18 63Religious 28 60

4-Year Public 85 56 78 55 135 534-Year Private 176 57 178 57 306 60

Nonsectarian 52 63 55 63 105 64Religious 124 55 123 54 201 58

Note: Reprinted from Beal and Noel (1979)

Source: Lenning, 0.T., Beal, P.E., & Sauer, K. Retention and A ttrition Evidence forAction and Research. Boulder: NCHEMS, 1980.

14

6 Terenzini

predict success in college. Indeed, in severalstudies, dropouts have higher high schoolgrades and standardized test scores than dopersisters. Moreover, the evidence on thepower of high school grades and academicaptitude in predicting retention amongcommunity college students is ambiguous.

The socio-economic status of a stu-dent's family has also consistently been foundto be positively related to retention, althoughthe evidence is not entirely unambiguous. Theevidence indicates that parents' educationalmainment level is probably a somewhat morepowerful predictor than income.

Race or ethnicity is also involved.Retention probabilities for Hispanic studentsare lower than those of Native American andBlack students, whose chances of completionare, in turn, lower than those for whites.Oriental students typically have a higher re-tention rate than whites. Astin (1971, 1973,1975), however, has developed evidence sug-gesting that once aptitude and achievementare taken into account, completion ratesamong Black students are reliably higher thanthose of whites.

Among community college students,however, Astin's evidence indicates that evenafter controlling for students' aptitudes andachievement levels, Black students' probabili-ties of completing are lower than those ofwhites. At the same time, however, Peng andFetters (1977) found no differences.

A relatively large body of research indi-cates that the motivations and aspirationsstudents bring with them to college, and theirparents' hopes and expectations, are signifi-cantly involved in students' attendance pat-terns. The determination to complete college,the intention to seek a graduate or pro-fefcional degree, the possession of clear-cutgo..is, and a commitment to the accomplish-ment of those goals are all predictive of col-1-ge completion.

So far as institutional traits are con-cerned, retention rates vary from one

institutional type to another. The evidence isgenerally consistent in indicating that reten-tion rates are higher in private than in publicinstitutions, and that tendency holds in four-year colleges and universities as well a:. in two -; ear institutions.

Housing is certainly important. Theevidence is consistent and strong that studentswho live on-campus are more likely to com-plete college than students who live c.ff-campus or with a parent or relative. Studentsliving at home are at greatest risk of droppingout. It follows, of course, that two-year andcommuter institutions have lower retentionrates than four-year and residential colleges.

Finances are perhaps the most fre-quently-cited reason students give for with-drawing from college, and certainly institu-tions can exert some control over the typeand amount of financial aid awarded. Whilefinancial considerations are no doubt involvedfor some individuals, the evidence indicatesthat monetary reasons may be less influentialthan we might expect.

We have discussed a number of in-dividual and institutional variables that theresearch suggests are important in retainingstudents. But the evidence is substantial in in-dicating that the personal and academic bag-gage students bring with them to college isless important in retention than are otherconsiderations. And, of course, institutionaltraits like type and size are unlikely to change(although some campuses have changed theirspots). Thus, we must look elsewhere for themajor influences on attrition and retention.

Intuitively, we sense that retentionbehavior is a function not of single variablesacting independently of one another, butrather of a web-like network of variables act-ing simultaneously. Research on student re-tention over the last 5-10 years has con-sistently pointed toward the sources of attri-tion and retention as interactive, as involvingboth individual and institutional variablesacting upon one another. Tinto uses the terms"academic ano social integration," Astin

15

Terenzini 7

prefers the term "involvement," Rootmanuses "person-role fit," and Stern spoke of"ecological niches." Whatever the nomencla-ture, the condition or phenomenon beingdescribed is, essentially the same. The greatera student's engagement in the academic andsocial life of the campus, the higher the pro-bability of continued enrollment.

Among the manifestations of social andacademic integration most consistently foundin the recent research literature to be posi-tively related to retention is students' inter-action with faculty members outside theclassroom. In some instances the salient vari-ables deal with the frequency of student-'acuity interaction :n other studies, the qua-lity of the contact appears to be critical. Instill others, the purpose of the students' con-tact with faculty seems to be the critical con-sideration. For example, academic-relatedforms of student-faculty contact appear to bemore important than social forms of contact,although I think it is reasonable to concludethat any form of student-faculty interaction isimportant in retention and certainly prefer-able to no contact at all.

Another groupother studentsis alsoinvolved in retention and are significantagents of socialization on a campus. Students,whether as an aggregate group or as a subsetof an institution's student population, defineand occupy an acatemic and social environ-ment. To the extent that an individual stu-dent's needs, interests, skills and values re-semble those of the peer group, normativeacademic and/or social integration, and there-fore retention, are more likely. Conversely,mismatches between the individual studentand the surrounding academic and socialworlds are likely to lead to a sense of margina-lity, if not isolation, and subsequently, towithdrawal.

It is important to note, here, that thefit betw-en the individual student's interestsand values and those of a subgroup of otherstudents may be sufficient to "hold" a stu-dent at an institution. So long as there is ade-quate integration in a subgroup of the studentcommunity, then prospects for retention are

16

increased. In this respect, both the size andheterogeneity of a student body becameimportant. The larger and more varied thestudent community, the greater the likelihoodthat an individual will find a sufficient num-ber of others who share a particular constella-tion of interests, needs and values and withwhom the student can associate and affiliate.

So fa as student support services areconcerned, I think it could be reasonably ar-gued that no single program or service by it-self exerts a significant influence in students'retention decisions. That is not to say thatsuch programs and services are unimportant,but only to suggest that their primary contri-butions to retention are indirect and throughthe provision of opportunities for students toengage in, and affiliate with, their academicand social communities. Athletics, clubs,church groups, student government (at what-ever level), membership on departmental, col-lege or campus governance committeesallconstitute points of contact with the institu-tional environment. No single opportunity, orperhaps even class of opportunities, has yetbeen unequivocally and powerfully linked toretention. But taken together, in the con-stellation of possible experiences that is thecollegiate environment, they become collec-tively important, and improvement in oneconstitutes an improvement, however slight,in the whole.

4. What toes the research not tell us (andwhy)?

The sad truth is that more is unknownthan known about attrition and retention.Despite the enormous volume of researchdone on this topic, it is a rare study indeedthat explains more than 30-35 percent of thevariance in students' attendance decisions.That leaves 65-70 percent of the variance un-explained! We have come a long way in ourunderstanding of the dynamics of student re-tention, but, clearly, we have a ways yet togo.

First, we are particularly deficient, I

believe, in our knowledge of the influenceinstitutions have on students' decisions to

8 Terenzini

continue or to withdrawwhat I have calledthe "institutional contribution" to attrition,those sources of attrition over which institu-tions have some control. Only in the last 5-8years has research interest turned from analy-sis of the role of student characteristics to thenature of student? campus experiences andtheir part in the attendance and withdrawalprocesses. Our understanding and apprecia-tion of the role faculty members play in stu-dents' retention and academic and socialdevelopment has increased over the last six toeight years, but we still know very little aboutthe extent to which non-teaching professionaland clerical staff members may exercise simi-lar (or different) influences on students, andthe roles students play in each otner's reten-tion and academic and social integration anddevelopment remain relatively obscure.

Second, our present models, designedas they are by graduates of four-year, residen-tial colleges and universities, display a decidedbias toward that form of postsecondary edu-cation. Only recently have retention modelsemerged that attempt to explain attendancepatterns in commuter institutions (e.g., Pas-carella, Duby & Iverson, 1983), in two-yearinstitutions, or among nontraditional sapdents (e.g., Bean and Metzner, 1985). Con-sequently, present inquiry in these settingsmust be based on theories that have beentaken from one institutional context andjury-rigged to function in another.

Third, our current definitions andtheories offer little in the way of advice forunderstanding the rol! of student goals andeffort. Only within the last five years have wepaid meaningful attention in our retentiontypologies to the "attainers" (those who haveaccomplished goals that do not include certi-ficate or degree completion).

Fourth, I know of no study that hasmonitored a cohort of students from semest-er-to-semester or year-to-year in an effort todetermine whether the influences on reten-tion may vary over time. Intuitively, one sus-pects that sophomore year attrition may pro-ceed from different sources than freshman

year withdrawal, but neither our research norour theories shed light on this issue. Thus far,we have only individual speculation to guideus.

Fifth, wc, do not yet understand thefactors that lead to different forms of with-drawal. What sorts of student traits and insti-tutional experiences lead some students to bestopouts, others to become transfers, and stillothers to dropout of postsecondary educationin all its forms? Attempts to answer thesequestions will encounter substantial designand technical problems, but the questions areno less interesting or worthy of analysis.

Sixth, work by Gosman, Dandridge,Nettles and Thoeny (1983) and others haveadvanced our understanding of racially-basedvariations in retention, but most of thesestudies have been conducted with multi-campus samples. Few individual colleges oruniversities can speak from knowledge andwith confidence about how the experiences oftheir minority students differ from those oftheir nonminority students, and about howthose differences might be related to atten-dance patterns.

Seventh, we are only beginning tounderstand the nature and extent of the in-fluence exerted by financial matters on stu-dents' attendance patterns. Our lack of under-standing in this area includes both the impactof public policy concerning federal and statefinancial aid programs, as well as the influenceof institutional policies and practices in finan-cial aid packaging for individual students.

Finally, we do not yet know muchabout what works or doesn't work in y-stematic and planned retention programs.What evaluations have been done (and theyare not widespread) often lack rigor. We doknow that the sources of attrition vary bycampus, and such variations make the applica-tion of retention programs beyond a singleand specific setting extremely difficult. Care-ful evaluation of local programs and practicesis needed.

17

Terenzini

Why, after so many years of study, wecontinue to dwell in such relative darknessabout why some students continue their en-rollment while others withdraw? We are dis-covering that our present models are too glo-bal, tending to view the attrition/retentionprocess as a set of dynamics common to alltypes of institutions. For example, while it isimportant to know that "academic and socialintegration," or "involvement" are centraldynamics in the retention process, such ab-stract conceptions require us to deal with setsof variables, with conceptions that aggregateand obscure nearly as much as they reveal,rather than with more discrete variables thatmay be amenable both to systematic inquiryand to administrative action.

Our lack of detailed understanding isalso attributable to our failure, until recently,to employ analytical procedures with thepower and complexity to match our models(limited though the latter may be). More thanfifteen years ago, Spady (1970, p. 77) urgedthat "with the more advanced multivariatestatistical techniques and standardized com-puter programs now available, further a-theoretical, bivariate research on the `corre-lates' of dropping out should be abandoned.Now!" The use of causal modeling and multi-variate statistical procedures has increaseddramatically in recent years, but on too manycampuses, analytical procedures continue tobe limited to the visual inspection of fre-quency distributions, to chi-square tests ofassociation, or to simple, bivariate correla-tions among a host of conceptually unrelatedvariables. Such unparsimcnious fishing expe-ditions often produce statistically reliablefindings, but also ones that challenge theinterpretive ingenuity of the analyst and jeo-pardize the careers of administrators whoplace too much trust in them.

5. Where dc we go from here?

Before we can come to grips with thisquestion in a meaningful way, I believe weneed to face at least two facts of higher edu-cational life. First, no college or universityofwhatever level or typecan be all things to all

18

9

students. While that fact will surprise none ofus, we seem either to disbelieve it, or, toignore it, perhaps out of fear that our institu-tion may lose critical enrollments, assuming,one must surmise, that we really can offersomething of value to all comers. But con-sider, for example, that the vast majority ofAmerica's college students attend school with-in fifty miles of their homes. Except in largecities, that significantly reduces the numberof institutions that a student might attend.The likelihood of finding an exceptionallystrong course of study in the area of the stu-dent's interests is correspondingly reduced,and even if one is found, research indicatesthat about two-thirds of our students willchange their academic major or career plans atleast once during the first two years of col-lege. The point, here, is that institutional per-ceptions that a wide variety of programs mustbe offered in order to meet student, com-munity and state needs produces an internalpressure to provide something for everyone,with the unavoidable constraints on howmany things can be done well. It seems rea-sonable to suggest that doing fewer thingswell may bear at least as much promise for in-creasing retention as doing many things in amediocre fashion.

Second, we must recognize that therewill be natural limits to what we can do as asystem or as any individual institution canexpect to do in the way of increasing reten-tion. The relative invariance of the nationalretention rate over the last century gives muteprophesy of our prospects, as a nation, forchanging things very much. Somewhat moreimprovement might be made on individualcampuses, but we must not delude ourselvesinto expecting that increases in retention willbe easy, sudden or dramatic. Not all studentshave the same ability, and even among stu-dents of similar ability, interest and motiva-tion levels vary. Questions of what retentionrates can and should be are intimately relatedto public policy questions dealing with educa-tion and schooling, with access and quality,with criteria and standards, with opportunityand achievement.

10

With this understanding of what someof the constraints are on our abilities to in-crease our knowledge of the dynamics of stu-dent retention or to retain students, !et usturn now to next steps.

Theory and Research

If our understanding of the dynamicsof student attendance behaviors is to increase,we must have better theoretical models. Whilecurrent theories constitute significant con-ceptual advances over what preceded them,we are at a point, I believe, where our under-standing will not progress significantly with-out new and refined models. The new modelsmust recognize that the dynamics of attritionand retention probably vary both across andwithin institutional categories. For example,mounting evidence indicates that the in-fluences on withdrawal in two-year institu-tions are quite different from those thatoperate in four-year institutions. And evenwithin, say, four-year institutions, the pat-terns of influence appear to vary betweercommuter and residential campuses.

Similarly, new models must more clear-ly recognize that even within any single insti-tution, student encounters with the institu-tion are interactivethe same experience willhave a differential effect on different kinds ofstudents. For example, there is good reason tobelieve that the simple inclusion of race as abackground variable in explanatory models ofattrit'or and retention is not sufficient.Different models are needed.

Third, models are needed that candifferentiate on the basis of attitudes and be-hzviors among academic dismissals, stopouts,transfers, and attainers. Our typologies, crudethough they may be, are still more advancedthan our empirical knowledge of what under-lies them. Differentiation among these groupshas important implications for institutionalprograms and policies intended to reducethese different forms of dropping out.

Finally, our present models do not takeadequate account of the external world inwhich our students and institutions live. For

Terenzini

example, projected enrollment drops did notmaterialize in many parts of the country inthe early 1980s because the projection modelsmade no allowance for improvements in thenational economy that led to increased em-ployment opportunities. And we know histo-rically that college attendance rates areinversely related to employment rates: as thejob market improves, college-going and reten-tion rates decline. Similarly, present modelsmake no allowance for federal, state or insti-tutional financial aid policies and practices.While financial aid considerations may havetheir greatest impact on where one attendscollege, the cost, quality of program, andprospects for degree completion are decidelynot independent of where one goes to college.

Thus, so far as our theories and re-search models are concerned, we need to givemore attention to the development of tar-geted models of student retention, modelsthat are specifically designed for specific con-figurations of institutional purpose and struc-ture, as well as for certain groups of studentswithin those institutions. The search for aunified theory that takes into account all ofthe various sources of attrition may be futile.

Increased understanding of the attri-tion, :etention phenomenon also requires en-hanced research designs and instruments, aswell as employment of more sophisticatedand powerful tools of statistical analysis. Acritique of the research designs in commonuse is beyond the scope of this paper and isavailable elsewhere (see Pascarella, 1982).That same source includes an evaluation ofalternative analytical approaches, as well as adiscussion of relevant variables for study.

Administrative Practice

The research on attrition and retentionsuggests several lessons for administratorsinterested in increasing retention on theircampus:

First, the first year is critical. If reten-tion programs are to succeed, they must exerttheir influence during the first year, perhapseven in the first six-to-eight weeks. Primary

19

Terenzini

attention should be focused on admissions,on helping students choose the right institu-tion in the first place (Tinto, 1986, p. 76); onan orientation, introducing new students tothe intellectual life of the campus, as well asto the variety of support services and extra-curricular life, and to an early introduction tofaculty members as something other than theperson at the front of the classroom; on aca-demic advising, and on career planning. It isnot too late to try to do something withsecond-year students, but by thzt time, per-haps as many as half of all students who willwithdraw over a four- or five-year period willalready have left.

Second, attrition and retention havecampus-wide origins. Students pick up count-less signalsimplicit and explicitabout howtheir institution regards them, and the mes-sages come from countless sources: secretar-ies and other staff, as well as from facultymembers; from academic and social policiesand regulation; from the presence or absenceof opportunities to participate responsibly inthe institution's decision-making; from theimportance attached to intellectual curiosityand to intellectual and personal discovery.There is no single source of attrition.

Third, it follows from this that there isno single lever to pull to reduce attrition. In-creasing retention rates will require a campus-wide response. Programs and efforts groundedin the belief that retention is the responsibi-lity of a particular individual or organizationalunit are unlh:ely to be effective. Jrganiza-tional and coordinating responsibility may beassigned to a particular person or office, butincreased retention must be an institutionalgoal, with responsibility shared by all. Suc.-cessful retention efforts will require theinterest and support of administrators at thehighest institutional levels, and the efforts ofindividuals, whether faculty or staff, must berecognized through the institutions' rewardstructures, including promotions and merit-based salary increases.

Fourth, if the sources of attrition andretention are to be urderstood on any givencampus, self-study is essential. The available

20

11

research and theories can be useful in guidingstudy on one's campus, but for careful andwise planning, there is no substitute for care-fully designed and executed, local research.Similarly, carefully designed evaluation ofretention programs is required. We cannotcontinue to invest precious time and resourcessimply on the basis of a belief in the efficacyof our programs or efforts, or on the fact thatthe program seemed to work on anothercampus.

Fifth, effective retention programs in-clude broad efforts to integrate or involvestudents in the life of the institution and thecommunities of people who comprise it. Peo-ple, and the interactions among them, arecritical. Programs that reach out to new stu-dents, that facilitate the establishment ofpersonal bonds between and among students,faculty, and staff, bear greater promise forsuccess than those that do not (Tinto, 1986).Institutions with high retention rates arecharacterized by a pervasive commitment tostudents and their educations and by theabundant opportunities they afford for stu-dents to affiliate with one another and withthe institution and its faculty and staff.

Finally, and following from this, goodretention is, in a fundamental sense, reallyjust good education. The objective is notreally to increase retention. That is but a sub-task, and on,.: that is likely to follow on suc-cessful performance of a more general andchallenging taskraising the quality of theeducational experiences of students and en-hancing the quality of the academic and socialprograms and services designed to facilitatethe educational process. If these things areattended to, it seems entirely reasonable toexpect that retention will take care of itself.

REFERENCES

Astin, A.W. Predicting academic performancein college: Selectivity Data for 2,300American colleges. New York: Free Press,1971.

12

Astin, A.W. Student persistence: Some clay,some don'twhy? College and University,1973, 48, 298-306.

Astin, A.W. Preventing students from drop-ping out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1975.

Bean, J.P., & Metzner, B.S. A conceptualmodel of nontraditional undergraduatestudent attrition. Review of EducationalResearch, 1985, 55, 485-540.

Kiehle, F.E., III. Postsecondary participationin the South: Developing interstate com-parisons and identifying contributing fac-tors. Atlanta: Governor's Committee onPostsecondary Education. Undated.

Pascarella, E.T., Duby, P., & Iverson, B. Atest and reconceptualization of a theo-retical model of college withdrawal in acommuter institution setting. Sociologyof Education, 1983, 56, 88-100.

Terenzini

Spady, W.G. Dropouts from higher education:An interdisciplinary review and synthesis.Interchange, 1970, 1, 64-85.

Riesman, D. Constraint and variety in Amer-ican education. Lincoln: The Universityof Nebraska Press, 1956.

Tinto, V. Limits of theory and practice instudent retention. Journal of Higher Edu-cation, 1982, 53, 687-700.

Tinto, V. Principles of effective retention.Paper presented to the College BoardSouthern Regional Office and Universityof Southern Mississippi conference on"Enrollment Planning: A Total Institu-tional Approach." New Orleans, June1986.

21

PREPA.ZING STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE:PRIORITIES FOR PROGRESS

Joseph L. MarksSouthern Regional Education Board

Atlanta, Georgia

Putting the Problem in Perspective

Today mounting evidence shows that asmany as one-half of entering college studentsare unprepared for college-level work, under areasonable definition of the term. A growingnumber of observers hold that this is unac-ceptable at this point in our nation's historyand development. Those who have reviewedthe historical data report that collev gradua-tion rates have been at 50 percent for de-cades. This suggests that as many as half ofentering students may have long been unpre-pared for college. So, why is improved pre-paration more important now than it hasbeen? The answer lies in demographic andeconomic Vends and their impact on Amer-ican social and material well-being. Smalleryoung cohorts are entering the educationalpipeline with an increasing representation ofdisadvantaged minorities. Our economy con-tinues its structural shift from an agricultural,mining, and manufacturing base to a serviceand trade base. The effective functioning ofour democratic institutions, the enrichmentof our diverse cultural heritage, and ourmaterial prosperity increasingly depend upona well-educated citizenry.

Throughout our country it is a sourceof pride that any high school graduate can beadmitted to some postsecondary educationinstitution. More than half of high schoolseniors say they plan to attend college, butonly a relatively small proportion are prepar-ing for the 20 percent of colleges that havehigh and clear entry standards. Thus, moststudents who express interest in college maynot be getting useful signals on how to pre-pare. Their high school schedule and perfor-mance do not suit their aspirations. Barelyone-third are in programs that focus on essen-tial academic preparation. Also, the perfor-mance of many students in the college pre-paratory curriculum is limited by the lack of

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13

clear college entry standards. As college entrystandards are raised to more appropriatelevels, large numbers of students will needstronger preparation.

Raising and Reformulating Entry Standards

High and clear entry standards enforcedby colleges and universities will help motivateand guide student preparation. But, somemethods used for raising standardsrequiringhigher standardized admissions test scores,higher grade point averages, and, most fre-quently, increasing the number of kind of re-quired high school courseshave disadvan-tages limiting their effectiveness. Among thedisadvantages are an inappropriate emphasison grades, neglect of the variation in coursecontent across schools, and lack of app:ica-tion to all postsecondary education sectors.

A more promising approach to raisingentry standards is based on setting standardsin terms of the skills needed to begin college,such as those developed for the CollegeBoard's Project EQ. If entry standards refor-mulated in this way are then communicatedto high school students in messages they canrelate to and at st .ges in their school careerswhen they still have time to correct weak-nesses, then a much more effective set ofguideposts to college preparation would exist.

This approach to raising standardscreates much needed opportunities for collegeand school faculty to work together todevelop more helpful and realistic statementsof the reading, writing, and mathematicscompetencies needed to ensure adequate pre-paration for college.

Assessing College Preparation

Higher and better defined expectationswill provide better guideposts for zollege

14

preparation and will move some students toimprove their performance. But many otherstudents will need additional guidance andmotivation. These students must not onlyknow what skills college work is going to de-mand of them, they need to know the pro-gress they are making toward the expectedskill levels.

Through an application of studentachievement assessment, the new standardscan be translated into practical performanceterms providing 43ecific goals that studentsmust meet in preparing for college. Suchassessments should, unlike many current"gate-keeping" assessments, indicate to in-dividual students at various grades how theyare doing in developing the specific skillsneeded in college. The assessments should bediagnostic and help students prepare forcollege.

Programs to Improve Preparation

Strengthening the preparation of stu-dents will require efforts by colleges andschools of a nature and of a magnitude notyet approached. The challenge through therest of the century will be to reach and pre-pare larger numbers of students who are botheconomically and educationally disadvan-taged. A much greater level of commitmentwill be needed to address the needs of this in-creasing group of students.

Programs are needed to address themotivational, practical, and educational needsof underdeveloped students. Providing suchprograms means many more people providingmore attention to students during the high

Marks

school and earlier years. The simplicity of thisstatement masks the difficulty of its imple-mentation. Schools need a considerableamount of direct assistance. Therefore, manypeople need to be involved if the needs foradditional preparation of half to three-quarters of the high school students are to beaddressed.

Colleges and schools can work togetherin implementing tutoring programs, newcourses and instructional approaches, such asOhio's EMPT program, "across the curri-culum" faculty development programs, two-plus-two programs, and mentoring programs.Many promising models are developingthroughout the country. Through such ef-forts, the elusive goal of access with qualitybecomes more attainable.

REFERENCES

Cornett, Lynn M. Improving Student Prepara-tion: Higher Education and the SchoolsWorking Together. Atlanta, Georgia:Southern Regional Education Board,1986.

Commission for Educational Quality. GettingStudents Ready for College: Why andHow We Must Change What We Are Do-ing. Atlanta, Georgia: Southern RegionalEducation Board, 1986.

Spence, David S. Academic Preparation andthe Improvement of Undergraduate Edu-cation. Unpublished manuscript.

23

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTSTHAT MAKE SENSE

Nathaniel Pugh, Jr.Georgia Southern College

Introduction

College entrance requirements havebeen stable for decades. In 1946, Fine (1946)noted that underlying policies governing ad-missiofls to undergraduate education varied,but a common thread ran through them all:graduation from an accredited high school,rank in graduating class, recommendation ofprincipa! or teachers, scholastic aptitude test3 r intelligence test, personal interview, char-acter referrals, extracurricular activities, andthe health record.

During the unprecedented growth inenrollment in higher education during the late1950s through the mid-1960s, the selection ofstudents for undergraduate admissions hadcentered mostly around objective and c.)gni-tive measures. These objective and cognitivemeasures were: high school rank, high schoolgrade point average, and an acceptable scoreon a standardized testthe Scholastic Apti-tude Test published by Educational TestingService or the ACT published by the Amer-ican College Testing Program of Iowa.

Beginning in the mid-1960s three majorexternal forces begin to exert their influenceon the character of undergraduate college en-rollments: open admissions, demands to in-crease access, and the civil rights movementthat called for radical changes in the race mix-ture of the student body in higher education.The results of these forces stimulated studentdiversity in college enrollments. More minori-ties and women were seeking places in Amer-ican colleges and universities in unprecedent-ed numbers. As a result, the diversity of thestudent body forced changes in academicpolicies, academic programs, and academicsupport systems. It was during this periodthat American higher education was asked bythe public to embrace and maintain in thefuture a pluralistic society.

15

This was the period of great experi-mentation for higher education in Americawhere the social and public policy of educa-tional equity had emerged to provide newopportunities for participation by "new" andso-called "nontraditional" students in our in-stitutions of higher learning in a traditionalcontext. Meaning that while our institutionsof higher education had begun somewhat re-luctantly to admit more minorities and wo-men, the decision for admissions was stillbased in the main on objective and cognitivemeasures that were inflexible and narrow.

After awhile and characteristic ofAmerican social and public policy, we as anation began to swing away from the sharp-ened focus on educational equity to educa-tions' excellence. This major shift fromeducational equity to educational excellencehas prompted some leaders at the institutionallevel and those at several statewide systems toincrease the standards for entrance require-ments to undergraduate programs.

Given these increases in standards forentrance requirements and based on my re-view of the literature concerning the changingfocus from educational equity to educationalexcellence, it is my hope that we are witness-ing not an "either/or" phenomena based onexclusion but rather an "and" phenomenabased on inclusion of diversity in our studentbody is we design new social and publicpolicies, for higher education beyond the year2000.

With this hope in mind, I furtherbelieve that the American nation canr sit af-ford to promote educational excellence at theexpense of education equity. If by chance ordesign our policies in higher educationdevelop and maintain only objective and cog-nitive measures as entrance requirements foradmissions to undergraduate programs, the

16

overall future quality of American highereducation will be reduced.

To balance our pursuit for educationalquality as a function of student body diver-sity in our undergraduate programs, it is im-perative that for entrance requirements tomake sense such that institution effectivenessin student retention is increased, admissiondecisions should oe based upon the use ofob;ective,fsubjective and cognitive and non-cognitive measures.

The New Entrance Requirements

A recent study by Goertz and Johnson(1985) published by the College Board foundthat 24 states now set minimum requirementsfor freshmen at all public institutions withintheir jurisdiction. Sixteen of these states haveenacted, or are considering, more stringententrance requirements (see Table 1).

These requirements include the use ofone or more of the following requirements: ahigh school diploma, high school course re-quirements, minimum high school grade pointaverage, high school class rank, standardizedtest scores, prediction of freshman grade aver-ages, and a sliding scale based on high gradeaverages and standardized test scores (seeTable 2).

There has been extensive discussionabout inadequate academic preparation ofstudents entering college today, yet only fivestates, California, Florida, Massachusetts, NewJersey, and Wisconsin, required a prescribedpattern of high school course work as an en-trance requirement for their public collegesand universities in 1984-1985 (Goertz andJOnson, p.3). The State of Georgia wiil jointhis group of states in 1988 (see Table 3).

Currently statewiae admission modelsmost frequently incorporate three majorcriteria: high school rank, high school gradepoint average, and a standardized test score(see Table 4). In addition these criteria areused to develop two additional methods for

Pugh

admission: the sliding scale and predicted per-formance. Brel-..nd (1985) developed fivestatewide aJansaions models and assessedtheir impacts upon three racial groups.

By implementing more rigorousentrance requirements or standards, manyeducational leaders are concerned that theimpact of such new requirements or standardswill have profound impact on certain categor-ies of students (Brizius and Cooper, 1984).These categories include students who willcomprise a significant and increasing percent-age of the undergraduate student body in thenext few years These students are those whomay not have taken necessary courses in highschool, older students, handicapped students,transfer students from community college,and disadvantaged students who may not havebeen able to complete courses while in highschool. Policies requiring minimum highschool grade point average or rank and thoserequiring minimum test scores are likely tohave a differential impact on minority stu-dents.

A Limited Review of Predictive Validity ofObjective and Cognitive Measure That AreUsed in Entrance Requirements

Validity refers to the usefulness of ameasure or a judgment. Most commonly, aprocedure is considered useful if it predictssome outcome of importanceas collegegrades are predicted by high school grades(Breland, 1981). What is the predictive valid-ity of the most commonly used objective andcognitive measures such as high school work,high school grade point average, and scho-lastic aptitude test for specific categories ofstudents?

Breland (1979) pointed out that for"Anglo populations," the high school recordusually yields slightly higher predictive corre-lations. For black populations, however, thedata suggest no consistent superiority of thehigh school records as a prediction of collegeperformance. The amount of data availablefor Mexican American or Chicano samples

4.05

Pugh 17

TABLE 1Use Of Statewide Standards, 1984-85

State

Statewide Standards, Minimum StatewideNo Institutional Standards, Institutional No Statewide

Discretion Discretion Standards

*Alabama XAlaska XArizona X

*Arkansas XCalifornia XColorado XConnecticut XDelaware X

*Florida X*Georgia XHawaii XIdaho XIllinois XIndiana XIowa XKansas X

*Kentucky X*Louisiana X

Maine X*Maryland X

Massachusetts XMichigan XMinnesota X

*Mississippi XMissouri XMontana XNebraska XNevada XNew Hampshire XNew Jersey XNew Mexico XNew York X

*North Carolina XNorth Dakota XOhio XOklahoma XOregon XPennsylvania . XRhode Island X

*South Carolina XSouth Dakota X

*Tennessee X*Texas X

Utah XVermont X

*Virginia XWashington X

*West Virginia XWisconsin XWyoming X

TOTALS 13 11 26

Source: Goetz, M. and Johnson, L. State Policies for Admission to Higher Education.No. 85-1, ETS RR No. 85-26. New York, 1985.

*Southern Regional Education Board States

18 Pugh

TABLE 2

Type of Statewide Admission Standard In Use, 1984-85

State

High HighSchool School

Diploma Course Min. Class Test Predict. SlidingOnly Require. GPA Rank Scores Perform. Scale

Arizona X or X or XCalifornia X X

*Florida X X X*Georgia X or X

IdahoIowa XKansas ....X .......Xa

*Kentucky*Louisiana*Maryland X

Massachusetts X*Mississippi X

Montana X XaNebraskaNevada XNew Jersey XNorth Dakota ....XOhio X XOklahoma X or X or XOregon X or X or XSouth Dakota X

*West Virginia X or XWisconsin XWyoming

Source: Goetz, M. and Johnson, L. State Policies for Admiss;on to Higher Education.No. 85-1, ETS RR No. 85-26. New York, 1985.

*Southern Regional Education Board States.

27

Pugh 19

TABLE 3

Summary Table for Five Models of Statewide Admissions Policies(Data from National Samples)

MODELS/MINIMUMS

Percentage (%)Elig!bleBy Group

blacks hispanics whites

DifferentialImpact (%)

blacks hispanics

1. Single IndexRank in top 2/5 56 64 71 12 7

GPA = 2.75 52 65 72 20 7

SAT = 800 27 43 73 48 30

2. Multiple IndexTop 2/5 and SAT = 500 56 65 72 10 7

Top 2/5 and SAT = 600 46 50 71 25 12Top 2.50 and SAT = 700 37 55 77 40 22Top 3/5 and SAT = E00 27 43 72 40 29GPA> 2.5 26 42 72 40 30

3. Either-Or ModelTop 7'15 or SAT = 1100 60 67 74 15 7

Top 2/5 or SAT = 1000 60 66 76 16 8GPA = 3.0 or SAT = 900 43 61 73 30 12Top 1/5 of SAT = 800 45 57 75 30 22

4. Sliding Scale Model 45 59 75 29 16

5. Predicted PerformanceModelSample Inst. A 40 60 72 32 12Sample Inst. B 37 58 72 35 14

Source: Excerpted from Breland M. An Examination of State University and CollegeAdmissions Policies. Research Repo. t 85-3. Princeton, Nj ; i=;:ucational Test-ing Service, 1985.

28

20 Pugh

TABLE 4

Changes in Statewide Admission Standards, 1982-1985

StateNorz H.S. Crse. Min. Test

Anticipated Req. GPA Score

Arizona XCalifornia X

*Florida X XGeorgia XIdaho XaIowa XKansas X

*Kentucky X*Louisiana X

Maryland XMassachusetts X

*M:ssissippi XMontana XNebraska XNevada XNew Jersey X

*North Carolina XNorth Dakota XOhio X

*Oklahoma XSouth Dakota Xa

*West Virginia XWisconsin XWyoming X

Source: Goetz, M. and Johnson, L. State Policies for Admission to Higher Education.No. 85-1, ETS RR No. 85-26: New York, 1985.

*Southern Regional Education Board States

aProposed

29

Pugh 21

TABLE 5

Comparative Differences in Student Academic Preparedness Based onHigh School Course Requirements as Established by The Board of

Regents of the University System of Georgia for Fall 1988

1984 Enrollment

Sampleof Freshmen

All BlackFreshmen

1986 Applicants

Sampleof Freshmen

All BlackFreshmen

N 141.0LOR 118.0 (34%)Diff. ( 9%)HSA 2.73 2.87SATV 394.0 349.0DATM 437.0 380.0TSAT 831.0 729.0PFAG 2.05 1.87MR 9(PFAG 1.97 9(PFAG 2.17

CCGPA 2.14 CCGPA 2.33DMR 65 (P FAG 2.04 89(PFAG 2.05

CCGPA 2.20 CCGPA 2.15Ret % (52%) (59%)

167.0156.0 (93.4%)

182.0 109.387.0 (47%) 68.0 (62%)

(15%)2.74 2.97

432.0 396.0465.0 426.0897.0 822.0

2.28 2.32

N = Nui,iber, LOR = Least one requirement not met, HSA =SAT Verbal, SATM = SAT Mathematics, TSAT = Combineddicted Freshman Average, CCGAP = Cumulative College GradeMR = Met High School Requirements, DMR = Did not meet atRetention Percentage (after one year).

High School Average, SATV =SATV&M Scores, PFAG = Pre-Point Average (after one year),least one requirement, Ret % =

22

was not sufficient for any generalizationsabout predictive correlations, but the magni-tude of those correlations available were onthe average lower than those for Anglo popu-lations.

Data from a number of other studiesreviewed by Breland (1979) showed that thecollege performance of black populations,male and female, have been consistently over-predicted by the traditional academic predic-tionsthe high school record and standa:diz-ed test scoreswhen predictions are based ondata from white or predominantly white sam-ples. The high school record appears, fromthese studies reviewed, to be the principalsource of this overprediction. Standardizedtest scores also have tended to overpredictcollege performance of black populations, buta combination of the high school record andthe test scores appears to minimize overpre-dican. In contrast, these studies showed thatwomen are consistently underpredicted bytraditional predictors when predictions arebased on data from male or predominantlymale samples. As a result, it is probable thatinstitutional effectiveness regarding stuntretention programs could be jeopardized be-cause the nature of the academic performancegiven a diverse student-mix in the enteringfreshman class may not at onset signal theneed for increased academic support services.

Hand and Prather (1985) investigatedthe predictive validity of the Scholastic Apti-tude Test for members of different genderand minority status groups. The findings pro-vided some support that college grade pointaverages are less predictable for black malesusing the SAT-Verbal scores and the highschool average.

Frank and Jeffery (1978) conducted astudy that assessed some impacts of freshmanadmissions formulas on regularly admittedfreshmen at Berkeley in the fall of 1972 and1973. The results showed that:

1. For both classes (1972 and 1973), thelevel of HSGPA is only weakly related to

Pugh

whether a student graduates or not. Thetest scores have no usable, direct re-lationsh;p as a general prediction ofgraduation.

2. Neither the ne ./ admissions formula narthe original one predicts graduation betterthan HSGPA. In fact, frequently they doworse.

3. The formulas would have excluded slight-ly more blacks and Chicanos than whitesand Asians.

4. Students made ineligible by the formulasgraduated at a rate only slightly lowerthan the rest.

5. Use of the formula results in a net loss inthe enrollment of women and minorities.

Nettles, Thoeny and Gosman (1986)collected and analyzed data that was sup-portive of the validity of traditional admis-sions criteria high school grades and SATscoresfor both black and white students.However, SAT scores, while valid, appear notto be as strong a predictor for black studentsas they are for white students' cumulative col-lege grade point average. Additionally, theyconcluded that several student persona! ant;attitudinal/behavioral characteristics contri-but,A far too much to the prediction ofcumulative college grade point averages to beignored in the admissions process. Therefore,they recommended that colleges and univer-sities should include consideration of bothnonintellectual and intellectual factors incollege entrance requirements.

A Limited Review of Noncognitive Variablesin Predicting Academic Success

Those who advocate the use of nontra-ditional predictors of college performance,employing noncognitive variables, suggest thata student's potential college achievementshould not be predicted solely on the basis oftheir performance on college entrance tests,but rather on the basis of a variety of student

31

characteristics (Nettles, Thoeny, Gosman,1986). Clark and Plotkin (1964) discoveredthat for black students entering pre JMi-nantly white universities, success in collegewas dependent upon their motivation andgoals regardless of their precollegiate p ulor-mance or entrance examination indices. Otherresearchers, such as Sedlacek and Brooks(1968), Gibbs (1973), and Pruitt (1973) ;.e-commended that for black students suchmeasures as educational aspirations, motiva-tion, precollegiate preparation and exper-iences, and social and academic support beused as alternative college admissions criteriato traditional standardized tests, high schoolrank, and high school grade point average.

However, concurrent with these effortsother researchers were maintaining the tradi-tional view of using the objective and cogni-tive test for college entrance requirements.Thomas and Stanley (1969) reported theresults of correlational analyses which showedthat aptitude tests are better predictors of thecollege performance of black students thanhigh school grades. Studies conducted byStanley and Porter (1967) and Cleary (1968)found no significant racial differences in thevalue of standardized entrance tests and otherprecollegiate academic characteristics (i.e.,high school grades and rank) as predictors ofc, "-,, performance.

With these findings by researchers thathold traditional v:ews, let's examine some ofthe noncognitive research studies a bit closer.On predicting academic success by race usingnoncognitive variables, Tracey and Sedlacek(1982) using the noncognitive questionnairecollected and analyzed data that showed forwhites the noncognitive dimensions of self-confidence, preference for long-range goalsover short-term goals or immediate needs, andrealistic self - appraisal were most strongly re-lated to college grade point average. Forblacks, the only noncognitive variables thatwere related to grade point average were posi-tive self-concept and realistic self-appraisal.For whites the noncognitive questionnairesignificantly adds to the prediction of grades,

while for blacks it is related to both gradesand enrollment status.

Another study was conducted byTracey and Sedlacek (1984) concerning therelationship of noncognitive variables to aca-demic success by race over four years. In thisstudy random samples of 1979 and 1980entering freshmen were given the Noncogni-tive Questionnaire (NCQ), designed to assessseven noncognitive dimensions associatedwith minority student academic success. Thepredictive validity of the NCQ for each racewas determined with respect to cumulativegrade point average and persistence at severaltime periods over four years. With respect toGPA, the NCQ was found to be highly pre-dictive at all points over four years for bothwhite and black students. Rogers (1984)studied the use of noncognitive variables inthe prediction of black freshmen's academicperformance at a large southern land-grantpredominantly white state university. Thesignificant NCQ items differed for males andfemales. Showing pride in leadership activit-ies, not getting easily discouraged, and expect-ing to have a difficult time at college werethree noncognitive items that predicted blackmales college GPA. For black females, themost important noncognitive variable washaving support from friends and relatives toattend college.

The noncognitive studies that we justdiscovered were all conducted in large pre-dominantly white universities. If we shift theenvironment to predominantly black collegesand universities, what are the results of non-cognitive studies conducted in these organiza-tional settings? Pratt (1984) used noncogni-tive variables to predict academic retentionamong population subgroups. Data were col-lected on race, sex, retention status, SATscores, high school class rank, and noncogni-tive data, including motivation (e,g., extent ofstudying, act satisfaction with grades).High multir ,e correlations between retentionstatus an., various combinations of predictorswere iourd for remedial students four of thefive years after entry and for males as

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opposed to females in the fourth and fifthyears after matriculation. The Institute forServices to Education (1979) study indicatedthat ACT-C scores underpredicted the GPA ofblack students. Two of the seven nontrad-tional measures were associated with cumula-tive GPA, highest expected degree, and plansafter graduation.

The Minimum Requirements For RegularAdmissions to the University System of Geor-gia institutions Fall Quarter 1988: A CaseStudy

In a publication prepared and publishedby the University System of Georgia (1985),the Board of Regents established minimumstandards for admission to a member institu-tion of the system. The minimum standardsreflected a pattern of high school courses. Theestablished minimum standards are: English-4units, mathematics-3 units, science-3 units (2laboratory sciences and one nonlaboratoryscience), social science-3 units, and 2 units offoreign language.

In this publication it was stated that,"To succeed in college, students must havestrong academic preparation in high school."The Board of Regents, which governs theUniversity System of Georgia believes thatsuccess in selected high school courses contri-butes immeasurably to a student's success incollege.

During the late winter, early spring of1986, through a colleague from the Universityof Georgia, I became interested in the impactof new standards for fall 1988 as adopted bythe Board of Regents of the University Sy-stem of Georgia and the progress that highschool students were making by taking theappropriate high school courses as determinedby the Board of Regents in order to meet theminimum requirements for regular admission.

Two different samples of students wereselected for this limited analysis. One sampleof enrolled students was selected from 1984and a second sample of students was selected

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in 1986. The 1984 sample was a 10 percentsample of all freshmen that enrolled in thecollege during the fall quarter 1984 and allblack freshman students who enrolled duringthat quarter was selected as a sample. Thenumber of students in the 10 percent samplewas 141 and the total number of black fresh-men was 167.

Based on the minimum standard forhigh school course requirements as establishedby the Board of Regents; 84 percent or 118out of 141 did not meet at least one require-ment. For black freshmen, 93.4 percent didnot meet at least one requirement or 156 outof 167.

However, when you repeat the samplefor 1986, the 10 percent sample of all fresh-man applicants represented 182 students andof that total only 87 or 47 percent did notmeet at least one requirement. This is sub-stantial progress in a two year period for a 10percent sample of all freshmen who made ap-plication to the college. One hundred andnine (109) black freshman applicants revealedthat 68 out of 109 or 62 percent did notmeet at least one of the requirements. This isa reduction but it is not as low as the 10 per-cent sample. This might lead one to speculatethat the black freshmen who planned to enterthe fall quarter 1986 were less prepared thanthe students in the 10 percent

The predicted freshman average gradefor 1984 as used by this college was PFAG =.0019 SATV + .0008 SATM + .6743 AHSA -.8755 (a constant) with a standard error ofapproximately 0.61.

In a comparison of the predictedfreshman average grade with the cumulativecollege grade point averages for this 10 per-cent sample of all freshmen and all blackfreshmen, interesting results are revealed (SeeTable 5). For the 10 percent sample with anN=141; only /4 or 52 percent were still en-rolled after one year. The group had a PFAGof 2.05. The nine who met the high schoolcourse requirements had a PFAG of 1.97 and

33

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after one year of college had earned a cumula-tive grade point average of 2.14; whereas the65 who did not meet at least one high schoolcourse requirement had a PFAG of 2.04 and acumulative grade point average of 2.20 at theend of thei! freshman year. This unexpectedresult is probably due to the difference in thenumbers of tdose who met the requirementsand those who did not meet at least onecourse reqL;rement.

For the total number, 167 black fresh-men, 98 or 59 percent were still enrolled afterone year. The group had a PFAG of 1.87.Nine who met the requirements had a PFAGof 2.17 and at the end of their freshman yeartheir cumulative grade point average was 2.33;whereas, 89 who did not meet at least onehigh school requirement had a PFAG of 2.05and posted, after one year, a college cumula-tive grade point average of 2.15.

Let's review the fact that 84 percent ofthe 10 percent sample of all enrolled studentsdid not meet at. least one high school courserequirement. Ninety-three percent of allentering black f-es;,men did not meet at leastone of the high school requirements; thislimited data suggests that black students whomet the high school course requirements,posted an academic perfo. Inance that wassignificantly higher (2.33) than their PFAG(2.17). In addition, these black freshmen outperformed those in the 10 percent samplewho met all of the high school course re-quirements (2.14 vs 2.33). These data aretoo limited to draw conclusions or makegeneralizations; but it could point the way forfurther research on minimum standards usinghigh school course requirements for collegeentrance. In addition, the black freshmen hada higher retention rate than the 10 percentsample (52% vs 59%). Again, there is oppor-tunity to ascertain why the difference :n re-tention percentages between the two groups.

But what happened to the 48 percentof the 10 perce at sample that left before theend of their freshman year and the 41 percentof the black freshmen who did not completetheir freshman year of studies. I for one do

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not believe that we can afford to risk losingthis potential and productive talent. It is myopinion that the admission process, and theacademic support system on a campus mustbecome interlinked if we are to improve uponinstitutional retention percentages.

It is quite possible, that while the tra-ditional predictor variables for both groupsacross this sample and within groups weresignificant, different students were still ableto succeed academically. But what concernsme is that traditional predictor variables forsome subpopulations on campus have under-or over-predict academic performance and donot provide additional nonintellective dataand information about students that mightface academic difficulties for nonintellectualreasons.

College Entrance Requirements That MakeSense

It is my belief that equity and qualitygoals can be met at the same time for a di-verse student body if institutions of higherlearning and systems begin to develop en-trance requirements that benefit the studentand the institution. Until recently institutionstook pride in the number of students who didnot complete their undergraduate studies orwho did not graduate. As you recall the eyeof the "free speech movement storm" atBerkeley in the mid-1960s centered aroundthe notion that students were not benefitingfrom their education.

As student consumerism increases, asthe percentage of "new" and "nontradi-tional" students seek educational opportunit-;.,, as more disabled students enroll in col-lege, as more adults return to college, and asmore minority students seek to fulfill theiracademic goals and human potential, it is im-perative that colleges and universities broadentheir entrance requirements to include bothcognitive and noncognitive measures; thatwhen combined will improve the predictionof the academic success for a diverse studentpopulation.

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There needs to come a day when theAmerican College Testing Program and theEducational Testing Service look to thefuture and ascertain that there is a need tocombine the ACT or SAT scores with thenoncognitive prediction variables as developedby Sedlacek and others for the purpose ofpredicting academic success for a diverse stu-dent body.

But most importantly, informationgathered from noncognitive instruments thathave shown to have significant predictivevalidity for academic performance for select-ed groups should be used in some cases tosupplant the cognitive measures of the ACTor SAT. However, the information gainedfrom noncognitive measures should be used toincrease institutional retention and assist thestudent in reaching academic and personalgoals.

addition, I believe the University Sy-stem of Georgia has an opportunity to ex-plore the impact of high school course re-quirements on collegiate academic perfor-mance. It is too early to determine what willbe the result of this minimum requirement ofstudents. Whatever the impact, I plead thatinstitutions of the University System of Geor-gia combine noncognitive measures with cog-nitive measures to predict academic perfor-mance for "new" and "nontraditional" stu-dents.

REFERENCES

Board of Regents. Preparing for College:Essential Courses and Skills. Atlanta: Uni-versity System of Georgia, 1985.

Breland, H. An Examination of State Univer-sity and College Admission Policies. Re-search Report 85-3, 1985. Princeton, NJ:Educational Testing Service.

Breland, H. Assessing Student Characteristicsin Admissions to Higher Education: A Re-view of Procedures. Research MonographNo. 9, 1981. New York: College EntranceExamination I3oard.

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Breland, H. Population Validity and CollegeEntrance Measures. Research MonographNo. 8, 1979. New York: College EntranceExamination Board.

Brizius, M. and Cooper, H. A Joining ofHands: State Policies and Programs toImprove High School-College Linkages.Report of the State Education ResearchCenter of the Council of Chief StateSchool Officers and The National Associa-tion of State Boards of Education, 1984.Alexandria, VA: NASBE.

Clark, K.B., and Plotkin, L. The Negro Stu-dent at Integrated Colleges. New York:National Scholarship Service and Fund forNegro Students, 1964.

Cleary, A.T. Test Bias: Prediction of grades ofNegro and white students in integratedcolleges. Journal of Educational Mea-surement, 1968, 5, 115-124.

Fine, B. Admission to American Colleges.New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946.

Frank, A.G. and Jeffrey, K.M. Freshman Ad-missions by Formula: A RetrospectiveStudy of Impact on Student Mix andGraduation Rates at Berkeley. Ed 192-675, 1978. Berkeley: Office of StudentAffairs, University of California.

Gibbs, J.L. Black students/white university:Different expectations. Personnel andGuidance Journal, 1973, 51, 463-469.

Goertz, M.E. and Johnson, L.M. State Policiesfor Admission to Higher Education. Re-port 85-1, 1985. New York: CollegeBoard.

Hand, C.A. and Prather, J.E. The PredictiveValidity of the Scholastic Aptitude TestScores for Minority College Students.Paper presented at meeting of the Amer-ican Educational Research Association,April 1985, Chicago, IL.

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Nettles, M.T., Thoeny, A.R., and Gosman,E.J. Comparative and predictiveanalyses of black and white student'scollege achievement and experiences.Journal of Higher Education. 1986, 57,289-318.

Pratt, L.K. and Gentleman, K.M. PredictingAcademic Retention Among Popula-tion Subgroups: The Use of Noncogni-tive Predictors. Paper presented at theforum of the Association for Institu-tional Research, May 1984, FortWorth, TX.

Priutt, A.S. Minority admissions to large uni-versities: A response. Journal of CollegeStudent Personnel., 1973, 14, 22-24.

Rogers, B.H. The Use of Noncognitive Vari-ables in the Prediction of Black Fresh-men's Academic Performance. Paperpresented at the meeting of SouthernAssociation for Institutional Research,October 1984, Little Rock, AR.

Sedlacek, W.E , Brooks, G.C., and Mindus,L.A. Black and other minority admis-sions to large universities: Three-yearnational trends. Journal of College Stu-dent Personnel, 1968, 9, 177-179.

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Stanley, J.C., and Porter, A.C. Correlation ofSAT scores with college grades for Ne-groes versus whites. Journal of Eductional Measurement, 1967, 4, 199-218.

The Institute for Services to Education. Pre-dicting the Academic Success of BlackStudents Attending the HistoricallyBlack Colleges--Part 2. Washington,D.C.: 1979.

Thomas, C.L., and Stanley, J.C. Effectivenessof high school grades for predicting col-lege grades of black students: A reviewand discussion. Journal of EducationalMeasurement, 1969, 6, 203-216.

Tracey, T.J. and Sedlacek, W.E. NoncognitiveVariables in Predicting Academic Suc-cess by Race. Paper presented at themeeting of the American EducationalResearch Association, March 1982,New York.

Tracey, T.J. and Sedlacek, W.E. The Relation-ship of Noncognitive Variables to Aca-demic Success by Race over FourYears. College Park: Counseling Center,University of Maryland, 1984.

IS THERE A SPECIAL NATURE TO STUDENT RETENTION IN POSTSECONDARYTECHNICAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS?

Michael McCordAthens Tech

Regarding the nature of postsecondarytechnical education retention, there are speci-fic questions to be answered which are unlikethose in traditional postsecondary institu-tions. One of the basic questions asked in acollege or university is: of those new fresh-men who enroll in the fall, how many returnfor their sophomore year? Given the nature ofone- and two-year programs in a technical in-stitution, a similar answer would be sought bya somewhat different question: of those stu-dents who enroll in a full-time program ofstudy, how many return (full-time) eachsucceeding quarter? Questions asked in tradi-tional institutions of higher education whichexamine the retention rate center around pro-gress towards a degree. However, in post-secondary technical institutions, the questionsshould focus upon how many students conti-nue to return until they receive and take anopportunity for employment.

The point is that, unlike colleges oruniversities where the ultimate goal is assum-ed to be obtaining a degree, in technical insti-tutions the primary goal is to move quicklyinto the job market. The stated purpose ofmost technical institutions is to provide thetraining and education which leads to thecompetencies add skills that are desired byemployers for immediate employment. There-fore, it is feasible that students in search ofemployment in a particular field may pursueeducation and training until opportunitiesdevelop for entering the job market. At thispoint students may be lured away from com-plet;ng a program into taking a jab that be-comes available. This changes the complexityof factors purposed by theories of retentionat the postsecondary level of education.

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Information With Implications for the Natureof Retention/Attrition Within Technical Insti-tutions

Tinto's (1975) efforts to identify thesalient variables impacting dropout decisionsled to constructing a model of the interactionamong these variables. In brief, the modelillustrates individual background variableswhich impact goal and institutional commit-ments. These then influence the academic andsocial systems. Thus, both academic andsocial integration influence dropout decisionsin a traditional setting (i.e. typically 18- to22-year-old student body on a residentialcampus). Fox (1986) tested the major con-structs of Tinto's model in a study of reten-tion of economically and academically dis-advantaged students at an urban, nonresidentuniversity. Academic integration was found tobe the most important factor with social inte-gration having little effect. For underpreparedstudents, the development of academic skillsand behaviors was seen as critical in terms oftheir retention.

Pascarella, Duby, and Iverson (1983)tested Tinto's model for commuter institu-tions and refined the model 3s a result of thedifferences in commuter students. Their datasuggested two main differences. Students atcommuter institutions do not seem to requirethe high degree of social integration as theirresidential counterparts. Students at com-muter campuses who have high needs for so-cial integration tend to transfer to the moretraditional schools. Commuter students whopersisted did have high needs for academicintegration. The authors concluded that "innonresidential institutions commitment to the

0II

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institution. . . is defined largely by successfuland personally satisfying interactions with theacademic rather than the social systems of theinstitution." (p. 92) Another major differencewhich Pascarella, et al., noted is the introduc-tion of a new, important variable for explain-ing persistence: intention. This variable hadthe strongest direct effect on persistence/withdrawal. The "intent to persist" was foundto be a good predictive indicator of persis-tence. Students who are transitory residentsof an area, or who are interested in a fewcourses only, are common to commuterschools. Thus, these students have little intentto stay until they complete a degree andshould be considered as inflationary to attri-tion statistics.

Bean and Metzner (1985) havedeveloped a conceptual model of nontradi-tional undergraduate student attrition. Themajor difference between the attrition processof traditional and nontraditional students isthat nontraditional students are more affectedby the external environment and academic in-tegration rather than by social integration.Pascarella and Chapman (1983) have alreadystressed these differences in multi-institution-al studies between residential and commuterinstitutions. When academic and environmen-tal factors are good, a nontraditional studentis likely to persist. When the academic factorsare good, but the environmental factors arenot, then this student is more likely to dropout. Thus, for the nontraditional student, theexternal environment or support system has agreater bearing on persistence than academicintegration and academic integration is moreinfluencial than social integration.

Different types of institutions havehigher attrition rates. In the 1984 session ofthis conference, John Smart reported thatpredominantly commuter colleges (both two-and four-year) generally have the highestdropout rate. This is often attributed to thedifficulty of establishing programs and ser-vices which could promote the social integra-tion of largely part-time and commuting sti-dents. Could it also be attributable to these

McCord

students either obtaining employment or apromotion within their current occupation?

Questions to Raise and Dilemnas to Study

The dominating motivation factor forenrolling in a two-year technical institution isthat of obtaining employment, thus the pri-mary research question to resolve should be:of those who do leave prior to graduation,how many do so in order to accept jobs? Dothese students return at a later date? Thesequestions should be answered accordingly byeach program of study. However, prior tosearching for answers to these questions, thereshould be some thought given to the esta-blishment of a systematic data base whichcan capture student data from the time con-tact is made in the application process. Oneaspect of the application process that may beoverlooked in technical schools and is rarelyconsidered in college application procedures isthe student's intent-to-persist in a program ofstudy. Students often apply to a technicalschool in hopes that the training will lead to ajob in the near future. If prior to being admit-ted or entering the school they receive anopportunity for employment which meetstheir immediate needs for financial security,this may delay their pursuit of educationalgoals.

There may be new factors to add toTinto's (1975) model when applied to nontra-ditional institutions. These may adjust theoriginal orientation from being primarily anacademic and a social phenomena to one offinancial needs experienced by the student.The most recent student orientation survey atAthens Tech indicates a major reason studentschoose to come for a technical education asfacilitating their acquisition of employment.The issue of value - added education becomesimportant if these students leave as soon as anemployment opportunity arises. Included in adata base system for retention study shouldbe follow-up questionnaires administeredimmediately upon a student's withdrawal orabsence in a quarter following a previous teimof enrollment.

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...

McCord 31

The components for a potential pre-and post-evaluation of value-added educationare partially in place at Athens Tech since acomprehensive aptitude test is a requirementfor entrance into full time programs. TheCareer Planning Program (CPP) is used to as-sess an individual's re2diness for a program ofstudy. However, it would be necessary for afollow-up to be more than just a retest usingthe CPP. This follow-up could be a majorcomponent and used as a means for exitingthe program by having students take a final orcomprehensive examination to ascertain thelevel of competency acquired in the particularskill or occupation.

In addition, it would De worthwhile tostudy the use of standardized tests of generalcompetency such as the COMP developed byACT. These tests are employed by North-eastern Missouri State University whose pro-grams of value-added assessment have beennationally acclaimed. Concerning the value-added by short term, temporary, or consumerinterest courses offered primarily at night, thepre- and post-examination would have to betailored to each course. If a series of shortterm courses are involved (such as the PCUsers Specialist Certificate), then it would benecessary to identify that specialty in anassessaielit of pre- and post-skills. This couldbe done by using a standardized test or a spe-cially developed inventory administered toassess the contribution made by the institu-tion to the student's development.

In conclusion, there does appear to be aspecial nature to the retention of students inpostsecondary technical education institu-tions. To define and enhance student reten-tion regardless of institution type always re-quires some special efforts. In a technicaleducation institution the following should in-fluence these efforts:

1. How does "intent to stay' and "purposeof attendance" correlate with immediacyof employment among leavers? Does thisjustify establishing a new category in thestudy of retention/attritionattainers?

2. Strategically use admission procedure toenhance retention (i.e., request a com-

mitment to persist to program completionand seek information regarding currentneed for employment).

3. Facilitate data capturing with exit inter-views via the Registrar's office when leav-ing prior to program completion.

4. Maintain a computerized retention file toprovide t:mely feedback to each depart-ment and to track students through thequarter as well as quarter to quarter.

REFERENCES

Bean, J. P. and Metner, B. S. A ConceptualModel of Nontraditional UndergraduateStudent Attrition. Review of EducationalResearch, 1985, 55, 485-540.

Fox, R. N. Application of a ConceptualModel of College Withdrawal to Disadvan-taged Students. American EducationalResearch Journal, 1985, 23, 415-424.

Pascarella, E. T., and Chapman. A Multi-Institutional, Path Analytic Validation ofTinto's Model of College Withdrawal.American Educational Research Journal,1983,20, 87-102

Pascarella, E. T., Duby, P. T., and Iverson,B. K. A Test and Reconceptualization of aTheoretical Model of College Withdrawalin a Commuter Institution Setting.Sociology of Education, 1983, 56, 88-100.

Smart, J. C. Research Uses in Administration:Enhancing Student Retention, Growthand Development. Proceedings of the1984 Conference, Higher Education inGeorgia: Research Needs and Uses in Ad-ministration. Athens: University ofGeorgia, Office of Institutional Researchand Planning, 1985.

Tinto, V Dropout from Higher Education: ATheoretical Synthesis of Recent Research.Review of Educational Research, 1975,45, 89-125.

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THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF RETAININGTECHNICAL STUDENTS

Jennifer CoplinSavannah Technical School

Technical schools have unique pro-blems in retaining students in one- and two-year specialized programs of study. A profileof the typical technical student will be pre-sented followed by attrition facts and sugges-tions for managing attrition.

According to new student surveys intwe technical schools, the typical technicalschool students have been in the work forcefor more than one year before deciding tofurther their education. About 68 percent ofnew students have been out of high school fortwo years or more. About 29 percent havebeen to college for some length of time. Infact, 70 percent say they considered collegesin the area when choosing the technicalschool.

More than half of all technical studentswork and attend school. Also, the majority ofstudents attend classes on a part-time basis.For the past few years, evening enrollmenthas exceeded day enrollment. In addition, 60percent of diploma-seeking students are re-ceiving some type of financial aid.

A three-year study shows that onetechnical school loses 40 percent of studentsbefore graduation. The most often cited rea-so_ are class and work schedule conflicts,financial problems, childcare problems, lackof basic skills, and relocation.

Faculty and staff at Savannah Tech seea real need to manage attrition. Employersrely on the school to fill many skilled jobs. Atpresent, job openings are coming in fasterthan can be filled with trained technicians.Also, in order to attract new business and in-dustry, a steady supply of technicians must betrained in the region. The Chamber of

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Commerce and Port Authority look toSavannah Tech to help bring in new industryand, therefore, strengthen the local and stateeconomy. More jobs will also help fight thepoverty problems in the area.

In order to keep students in school,several programs or procedures have been im-plemented and found helpful. An early inter-vention system to refer students for counsel-ing is initiated through instructors and moni-tored by the school's highest official. A peer-tutoring program has aided many studentswho lacked academic preparation. Remedialmath and reading are now offered 11 hoursdaily, are free of charge, and are open toanyone at least 16 years of age or over. Also,scholarships anu an emergency loan programhave been initiated by Savannah Tech'sFoundation and by a local civic club. Flexiblescheduling, evening class expansion, and theencouragement of part-time enrollment helpthose students with scheduling problems. Atask force has been working to further studythe problems of retention.

To date there remain many unansweredquestions: Is the school's attendance policy(designed to stimulate workplace expecta-tions) too rigid? Can admission requirementsactually work to predict successful programcompletion? Should students who leave aftershort periods of training and go to work intheir fields of study be considered positiveplacements?

The most important question of all inthe retention of students Is one that must beasked daily by all school staff: How can we bemore caring and inviting as a school? Theanswers must be found through effectiveaction on everyone's part.

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PROBLEMS IN DEFINING VOCATIONAL TECHNICALRETENTION STATEWIDE

Fred E. Kiehle, IIIState Board of Postsecondary Vocational Education

The purpose of this paper is to examinesome of the difficulties that exist in definingretention in Georgia's postsecondary voca-tional-technical schools. The problems will bedivided into two general categories, which Iwill call mechanical problems and value-related problems. Some current figures on re-tention in the tech schools will be examinedin order to illustrate these problems. Finally, Iwill look into the future and discuss what Isee coming that will affect these problems. Itshould be remembered as I discuss thesetopics that I am presenting my own pro-fessional opinions. Nothing that I say shouldbe taken as an official position of the StateBoard of Postsecondary Vocational Educa-tion.

Current Problems

As I stated above, I see the problems indetermining re`mtion rates for Georgia's post-secondary technical schools as falling into twogeneral categories, mechanical problems andvalue-related problems.

Mechanical problems are those that re-sAlt from our current methods of countingstudents and accessing the records that aremaintained. Georgia has an automated voca-tional student information system operatedby the Office of Vocational Education of theState Derartment of Education. The system'smajor weaknesses are that it is not interactive,is not based on any database management sy-stem software, and is not school-based. It isimportant to note that these weaknesseslargely reflect the fact that the system isabout eight years old and therefore is techni-cally out-of-date, rather than there necessarilybeing inadequacies in the original design ofthe system.

Under this system the schools submitstudent data cards to four geographic centers,

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where the data are entered and then for-warded to the proper functional center. As faras data relating to retention are concerned,one center handles all enrollment data state-wide, and another handles student exit (com-pletion and placement) data statewide. Atthese functional centers, the school data filesare loaded into master statewide COBOL datafiles and are accessed via custom-writtenCOBOL programs. Each master file is anannual file, thus making the ideal of tr.-. kingof individual students across years very diffi-cult.

Nonetheless, the system is fairly ser-viceable for retenticn studies because of thetraditional en;phasis of vocational educationon p!acement of students after trait ing. Thus,for any given year all the persons exiting theschool are identified and, in most cases, thereason obtained. As a result, at the end of ayear we know the number of students served,the number still in school, and the numberthat exited. For those exiting, we knowwhether they graduated or not and, if not,why. We also know their placement status,both for graduates and for most nongrad-wiles. Actually, the system is more complexthan I just described and some of these com-plexities add difficulties to accurately deter-mining retention; however, in general, a rela-tively good measure of retention can h' h-tained.

The second category of problems in de-fining retention in the technical schools iswhat I call the value-related problems. I

would suggest that, to be meaningful, reten-tion must be defined in terms th3t correspondto the purpose of an institution. In colleges,traditionally the ultimate purpose has beengranting the student a degree. Therefore, astudent has been "retained" if he or shereceives a degree. Vocational-technical educa-tion has a different tradition. Its purpose has

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been to meet the training needs of businessand industry and to enable persons to becomeproductive members of the work force. Thatpurpose is not necessarily tied to a formalaward but instead to the result of the training.As a result, if a person leaves school to take ajob in a field related to his or her training, theschool's purpose has been fulfilled, even if thestudent did not graduate. In fact, it has notbeen unusual for employers to be encouragedto "raid" the classroom for employees, andthe curriculum has often been designed tomake such "raiding" feasible both for theemployer and the student. Thus, traditionalvo:ational education curriculum can be called"front-loaded." That means that from thefirst day of class the student is taught skillsthat can be used on the job.

The question, then, is whether studentswho go to work in their field of training havebeen "retained," even if they do not graduate.Said in another way, in technical education isretention "award-based" or "job-placement-based"? For retention to be a valuable mea-sure for our postsecondary technical schools,I believe this question needs to be answered.

Current Retention Rates

Now let's look at some figures to illu-strate these ideas. I looked at our statewideJata for three yearsFY 1984, FY 1985, andFY 1986. Since the numbers were quite stablefor these three years, I am just going to dis-cuss round figures that reasonably representthe relationships for all three years. For eachof these three years, approximately 25,000students were enrolled in regular certificate,diploma, or degree programs (as opposed to avariety of short-length upgrading or retrainingcourses). Of that 25,000 approximately15,000, or 60 percent, exited the school dur-ing the year. Of these exiters, 6,000 graduatedfrom a program. That proportion, 42 percent,could be considered one measure of retention.In other words, of those people that endedtheir affiliation with the school, 42 percentwere "retained" until graduation.

Kiehle

However, another 2,000 of the exiterswere administrative completers, people whofinished all the training requirements of aprogram but did not do the paperworknecessary to receive a formal award from theschool. So instead of 6,000, we really have8,000 people who completed a training pro-gram at the school; therefore, 55 percent ofthe exiters were retained to program comple-tion, and 45 percent, 7,000, e:.ited prior toprogram completion. But of that 7,000, 600continued their education at another schoolor co!lege; so they did not really exit frompostsecondary education. Accordingly, actu-ally 8,000 of 14,400 exiters were retained toprogram completion, giving us a retention rateof 57 percent. However, of the 6,400 personsthat left prior to program completion, 1,000took jobs in their field of study. Returning,ti.en, to the earlier discussion of school pur-pose, we can say another 1,000 of our exitersfulfilled the school's purpose in admittingthem to a training program. Therefore, nowwe have 9,000 of the 14,400 persons lelvin2postsecondary education in the technicalschools having been retained until the school'seducational purpose for the student was ful-filled. Does that mean that our retention rateis 64 percent?

The point of this convoluted flow ofnumbers is to illustrate that depending uponthe answers to the value-related problems indefining technical school retention, the reten-tion rate for Georgia's postsecondary techn-ical schools could range from 42 percent to64 percent. I believe that wide a range saysthat these are questions that do need answers.And, of course, the numbers could changeeven more if the mechanical problems dis-cussed above were resolved.

Future Changes

What is the future I see for the post-secondary technical schools relative to defin-ing and measuring retention?

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In the realm of mechanical problems,we will be moving to a new student informa-tion system in one to three years. It will be aschool-based system networked at the statelevel. Hopefully, it will be more interactive,more flexible, of more direct value to theschools who provide the data, and thereforemore accurate. Presumably, tracking of in-dividual students across fiscal years andbetween schools will be more feasible. Ingeneral, then, the system should enhance ourability to implement evaluative retentionmeasures, based upon the answers to ourvalue-related problems, at the school and statelevels.

Regarding these value-related problems,I expect the future to bring changes to thepostsecondary technical schools I see usmoving to a system which places increasedemphasis on students' attaining the formalaward for program completion. One of tillmajor reasons behind the creation of the StateBoard of Postsecondary Vocational Educationwas to provide a governance environmentspecifically dedicated to operating a statewidesystem of postsecondary technical schools.The phrase "statewide s$ -tern" is an exactquote from the Quality Basic Education Actunder which the Board was established. A sy-stem implies a comparability across the statethat assures quality for employers and mobi-lity for students. Accordingly, the Board has atask force underway to develop general stan-dards for programs in order to assure compar-able quality of graduates statewide, to aidemployers, and to provide a consistent struc-ture of program curricula to aid studentmobility.

The Board has emphasized the impor-tance of the technical schools in fosteringeconomic development in our state. Thus, it isfocusing on responding to employer needs fortraining. Through its efforts in program stan-dards, it wants employers to be confidentthat, if they hire an automotive mechanicfrom a technical school, that mechanic willcome to the job with at least a specified set ofskills at a known minimum level of quaLy,

35

regardless of the particular school the studentattended. This kind of quality assurance playsan important role in statewide economicdevelopment, because we want businesses andindustries considering locating in Georgia toknow that, wherever they go in our state,they can depend upon the availability ofcomparably skilled employees.

I have discussed this point because ithas implications for retention in the technicalschools. Specifically, graduation becomesmore important. Quality assurance leadsdirectly to increased accountability, and noone wants to be held accountable for a half-baked product. As a result, schools will likelyplace increased emphasis on encouraging stu-dents to complete their training programs.Likewise, employers will need to understandthat, to reap the benefits of quality assurance,they cannot hire students out from themiddle of their training.

Of course, nothing is ever simple. Likeeveryone else, we tend to want to have ourcake and eat it too. Thus, one probable ob-jective of the program standards project willbe to include, within the curricular structureof programs, standard "early exit" pointssuch as clerk-typists within secretarial pro-grams and brake or tune-up specialists withinautomotive mechanics programs. Such exitpoints will complicate our counting (i.e.,mechanical problems) and our definitions(i.e., value-related problems). For examr ie,have these early exiters been retained in thesame way a graduate has? Furthermore, willearly exit points encourage students ., leaveprior to program completion?

Nonetheless, it seems clear that increas-ed emphasis will be placed on program grad-uation. That change has already been reflect-ed in the evalution/planning/budgeting pro-cess instituted lost year. That process includesa program assessment module that uses mea-sures of enrollment, graduations, and place-ments to identify programs that need furtherquality assessment by a school. The inclusionof measures of graduates in that system is a

36

significant departure from previous practice,in which placement rate was the paramountmeasure of program success. At the sametime, the process maintains the dual nature oftechnical school purposes by including bothgraduate and placement measures. Nonethe-less, the changing significance of programgraduation in the technical schools must bereflected in the development of retentionmeasures for these chools.

In summary, the measuring of retentionin Georgia's postsecondary technical schoolsis complicated by mechanical problems re-sulting from a somewhat antiquated studentinformation system and by value-related pro-blems that require that meaningful retentionmeasures be defined in ways th-.at reflect thc

Kiehle

purposes of these schools. Based on the cur-ren counting system and depending uponhow retention is defined, the statewidesystem could defensibly ciaim retention ratesranging from about 42 percent to 64 percent.In the future a new statewide student infor-mation system should help reduce the mech-anical problems of measuring retention. Butevolving changes in the purposes of theschools and how they should therefore beheld accountable will continue to complicatethe process of determining meaningful reten-tion measures for the system. At the sametime, however, these changes, with the goal ofassuring comparable quality graduates acrossthe state, tend to mak- developing retentionmeasures all that more important for theLchoo Is and the state.

ANOTHER STATE'S PERSPECTIVE IN TECHNICAL STUDENTS

Diana JosephGreenville Technical CollegeGreenville, South Carolina

To understand student retention atGreenville Technical College the followingitems will provide background information.Greenville Technical College, one of 16 tech-nical institutions in South Carolina, is theoldest and largest in the state. It is sometimesreferred to as the "flagship" technical institu-tion in South Carolina. Program offeringsinclude arts and sciences (a transfer program),allied health, nursing, business, adult educa-tion, industrial, engineering, and continuingeducation. Each quarter Greenville TechnicalCollege enrolls approximately 6,000 curri-culum students, and serves nearly 12,000 stu-dents per week in the continuing educationprogram. Greenville Technical College is theonly public higher education institution inGreenville County. A large number of stu-dents intend to transfer to other institutionsat a later date. There are two other highereducation institutions in the county which areprivate and very expensive. The mission andpurpose of Greenville Technical College, aswith a majority of technical institutions, is tomeet the needs of business and industry in thecommunity by way of training and re-trainingstudents for employment. The city of Green-ville is known as the textile center of theworld and a large number of people areemployed in business and industry. However,as the textile industry declines, the leadersof the city of Greenville strive to bring in newand different types of industry.

When addressing retention at Green-ville Tech, each program of study is consider-ed individually. The division of arts andsciences has the largest enrollment but on apercentage basis has the lowest graduationrat,. Arts and sciences is designed as a transferprogram, therefore retention is not an issue. Alarge number of Greenville County highschool graduates remain in the area, live athome, and are employed part-time in an

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attempt to Lave money during the first twoyears of their postsecondary education. Asstated earlier, Greenville Tech is the only pu-blic higher education institution in thecounty. A majority of arts and sciences stu-dents wil! not complete the requirements forthe AA or AS degree before transferring to afour-year program at another institution.

Retention is a concern in the nursingand allied health programs. These programsare highly structured. The degree must beconferred and a state liscense must be obtain-ed in order for the student to obtain employ-ment.

In the industrial and engineering divi-sions, retention is also a concern. Students en-roll in classes to acquire the skills required toget a job. F:r many, after they are employed,obtaining a degree is of little importance tothem. Greenville Technical College does workvery closely with business and industry in thearea in an effort to keep abreast of the chang-ing employment environment.

Greenville Technical College is address-ing retention by implementing the following:(a) If a student misses three consecutiveclasses, either a counselor or the instructorcontacts the student to determine the pro-blem and aid in their return to class; (b)federally-funded AHEAD and IMAGE pro-jects are utilized by the allied health and nurs-ing programs `o assist students with disad-vantaged backgrounds; (c) the orientationprogram in the health professions includesstudent visits to hospitals so that they can ob-serve what health professions job entail, andefforts are also being made to expand thisconcept in other divisions; (d) class sizes arelimited to allow students to receive specializ-ed assistance frcm Ilintructors; and (e)follow-up evaluations are conducted with all

38

graduates and their employers to assess theprograms.

In summary, retention is difficult todefine and must be defined by each institu-tion according to its individual characteristics.Factors such as geographic location, demo-

Joseph

graphics, types of students, mission of tie in-stitution, financial resources, and economicenvironment contribute in the retention pro-cess. Technical education is and will be toeven a greater degree in the future an area ofincreasing importance in our society.

RETENTION PROGRAMS THAT WORK

John SallstromGeorgia College

We have a number of programs atGeorgia College that have been successful re-garding retention. One is Georgia College 101or the student success course which was firstoffered in the fall quarter of 1978 and wasmodeled after one at the University of SouthCarolina. The program is designed to encour-age students during their first year of enroll-ment to understand the college, to understandits services, to understand and appreciatehigher education, to make career choices, andto develop interpersonal relationships withother students and faculty. Over the years thisprogram has been expanded. We encouragethe developmental studies students to takeGC 101 because it is one course they can takeand receive academic credit. The studentswho are undecided about their major oftenfind the GC 101 course very helpful in deter-mining their academic interest.

Several years ago, a group of ourfaculty in the School of Business conductedan intensive evaluation of the GC 101 course.They concluded this particular course posi-tively affected the retention rate for all stu-dents, and the program positively affectedstudent success rates for those entering col-lege with less potential for success. The gene-ral conclusion reached from this evaluation ofGC 101 is that this course does seem to meetthe objectives of increasing retention while atthe same time helping to increase the successof students that enter Georgia College withminimum SAT scores of 800.

The (----- 101 classes, incidentally, areconnected .ith our minority mentor programor minority advisement program. This hasproven to be one of the most effective waysto meet the requirements of the minoritymentor program because these classes providethe activities that are mandated by the Boardof Regents regarding minority retention. TheGC 101 classes give faculty an opportunity to

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meet minority students directly on a day-to-day basis in an integrated setting.

We also provide an orientation for newfaculty each fall with the idea that freshmanfaculty can empathize with freshman stu-dents. In any case, new faculty participate inthe regular training program for faculty teach-

in; the GC 101 courses. Sometimes newfaculty volunteer to teach the GC 101 cour-ses. Even if they do not, they have been introduced to the kinds of problems that freshmenencounter.

Another Georgia College developmentis a faculty mentor program. The mentoringprogram for new faculty matches them upwith some of the more successful teachingfaculty. The program also has been good forestablished faculty by providing an opportu-nity to glean fresh ideas from the new incom-ing faculty. One thing that our administrationhas greatly emphasized is the need to improveteaching effectiveness. This are1 undoubtedlyimpacts on retention but not always in waysthat can be easily measured. It is very impor-tant for the faculty to be aware of studentneeds and to make every effort possible toimprove their teaching effectiveness.

Another administrative effort connect-ed with the GC 101 program is to encouragestudents and faculty, whether they are teach-ing these classes or not, to participate inextracurricular activities on the campus. Thepresident has made a point of attending asmany concerts, plays, and athletic events aspossible and has encouraged other faculty toattend also. The visibility at programs of thepresident, administrators, and faculty isnoticed by the students; and though the im-pact on the students is difficult to measure,rest assured the visibility does begin to havesome positive impact along the way.

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There are several other effective mea-sures we have taken at Georgia College. Acomprehensive academic advisement programhas been established for several years. As partof the faculty orientation program in the fallwe have an advisement training session for allnew faculty. We also have advisement work-shops for established faculty who perhapsneed some refresher skills. We offer advise-ment services not only to minority studentsbut also to international students, profession-al students, provisional students, and undecid-ed students. This past spring a survey ofapproximately 4,000 students resulted in over1,000 responses regarding effectiveness ofadvising. Results showed that 91 percent ofthe students felt that their advisors were ef-fective. These results were sent on to depart-mental chairs, deans, and upper level admini-strators; the reward system is there for facultymembers who are good advisors.

Georgia College established a develop-mental studies program before it was requiredby the Board of Regents. Research indicatesthat the students who have taken develop-mental studies courses, for the most part,have been successful with the initial math andEnglish courses in the college core curriculum.In addition, many of the developmental stu-dies students at Georgia College have gone onto graduate with honors. For the most partthis program has been successful, especially inEnglish.

Results from the evaluation ofdevelopmental studies conducted last yearsuggest that many of the students who go intothe beginnirm math courses have a great dealof difficulty :o our moth department. There-fore, the faculty feels the exit criteria formath from the devc:cprIental studies is fartoo low. They feel that Rodents who takeMath 101 repeatedly and fan -.;:- withdrawshould be required to take developmentalstudies again before being allowed to repeatthe regular math sequence. A concern of ourfaculty is that they do not want to lower aca-

Sallstrom

demic standards in order to retain students.The general consensus on our campus is tomaintain academic integrity, not just retainstudents at any price.

We do have other programs that aid inthe retention of students. For example, wehave a two-day comprehensive orientationprogram during the summer to which studentsand parents are invited. The GC 101 classthen is a follow-up to the summer orientationsession.

The close working relationship betweenthe academic affairs division and the studentaffairs division at Georgia College is success-ful. The people in student affairs serve on theadvisement steering committee. They workwith our minority advisement prfigram andconversely those in academic affairs serve onthe orientation programs which are operatedby the student affairs division. We work to-gether to encourage students to take advant-age of the counseling services that are avail-able. Our counseling staff has been expandedover the years and it is a very effective addi-tion to the overall retention program.

The one factor in retaining students,that has the greatest impact and is the leastmeasured, is actual classroom activity. It isvery important to realize nct only the typesof interactions that occur in the classroombut also the effect or, students of facultytraining and attitudes. Tile faculty's relation-ship with their students outs;":. the classroomcan be a boost to retention. I have workedwith many students on an individual basis,trying to help them solve problems in andoutside of class. There are also many otherfaculty who have spent untold hours in thissame way. It is very seldom noted, but is re-vealed in the overall outcome, that facultymembers who are really concerned about stu-dents and want to do everything they can tohelp them are one of the most vital aspects ofa good retention program.

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RETENTION PROGRAMS THAT WORK

Fran RauschenbergUniversity of Georgia

I hesitate to say that retention pro-grams work on the University of Georgiacampus because one of the biggest problemsthat we confront is the lack of appropriatemethodology. Many of us do not know whatwe are measuring because we do not knowwho we are measuring. On a traditional-agedcampus such as the University of Georgia, wesometimes become complacent and think thatwith an approximately 20 percent attritionrate in the freshman to sophomore year wehave no problems. I believe we do have thepotential for problems in retention.

One of the things that I have tried todo is build some of the University of Georgiaretention programs on a common theoreticalbase. Let me site some of the research that Ihave found appealing an rseful.

One of the research models on studentsand attrition that one can draw on is theTinto Model. Basically Tinto states that a stu-dent arrives on campus with a lot of built-infactors. These factors include family back-ground, pre-college schooling, and, of course,each student's own individual attributes.There is no way to modify or change any ofthese factors since they are a part of thestudent's makeup when he or she arrives oncampus.

As instructors and advisors, we can in-fluence the student's goal commitment andinstitutional commitment. The universitycommunity expects students to finish somesort of program, to walk away from our cam-puses with a piece of paper in their handscertifying that they have completed a pro-gram. This is not always what the student hasas his or her goal. Also, we are not clear opexactly what amount of commitment the stu-dent does have to the institution that theyhave selected. We would like to believe thecampus students attend is top on their list,

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yet we know that this is not always true. Stu-dents attend a college because it is close tohome, or because it is very far from home.Many come because a parent is an alumnus,beca.ise their big brother is a current student,or because it is close to the boyfriend or girl-friend. There are all sorts of reasons why stu-dents are committed to an institution.

Once a student arrives on campus, twodifferent systems take over: the academicsystem and the social system. While I considermyself a representative of the academic side, Ican attest that a student's involvement on asocial level is extremely important. We feelthat through some of our extracurricular pro-grams we are promoting the involvement ofstudents in a variety of campus life areas. Alsostudents are interested in their peer groupinteractions: do they make friends, do theyget along with the roommate, do they pledgethe fraternity or sorority of their choice. Butstudents will define their academic integrationvery specifically. They are looking for goodgrades, and probably not so much for intellec-tual developmentalthough that is what weare interested in as faculty and administrators.Students are also interested in faculty interac-tions. Many of UGA's freshmen will havethree or four classes during the freshman yearwith enrollments of over 150, which make itextremely difficult for students to have qua-lity faculty interaction. This is where our aca-demic advisors become so important, and thisis one place where most students can expectto hare a personal one-to-one relationship.Tinto concludes that these factors produce akind of academic and social integration whichrealign students' goals and institutional com-mitments. This is an ongoing process thatnever ends.

Educational research tells us thatfreshmen or first-year students tend to makeup their minds about whether they are going

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FIGURE 1

SUBSECTION OFTINTO'S CONCEPTUAL SCHEMA

Academic System

GradePerformance

I

I

I

IntellectualDevelopment '

L _ r _ _J

r --1Peer -Grou pInteractions

>AcademicIntegration

-->Faculty

InteractionsL _ _ _J

Social System

SocialIntegration

Commitments

- _Goat

Commitment

1

InstitutionalCommitment

L .-- - ...- - --J

SOURCE: Adapted from Vincent Tinto. Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesisof Recent Research, Review of Education Research, Winter 1975, 45, 89-125.

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Rauschenberg

to stay at an institution in the first six weeks.When the dropout decision is made, howmuch quality information do they have? Formany of them, they have just taken their firsttest. They have no grade. What they do knowis that they do not get along with theirroommate, that visitation hours which include24-hour visitation of the opposite sex indorms on the UGA campus is proving to benoisy and lacking in any sort of privacy, thatthe food in the cafeteria tastes terrible, andthat they have a bad :old. By the time thesixth week rolls around, they usually are sick.They go home and think to themselves,"Home never looked so good." A freshmanliving off-campus who was in my orientationclass told me that housework always lookedso easy when his mother did it. But now thatit is three male roommates and him, it is noteasy and his roommates do not like his cook-ing. Students are coping with a lot of things.For a lot of freshmen, all of a sudden the goalof earning the degree in four years is lost. Allthey want to do is finish the quarter. Theywant to go home to the nearest school, to thehometown honey, to mom and dad wholooked so bad just six weeks before. Pro iidingan atmosphere of caring and concern is adifficult task for higher education.

My favorite research is Bill Perry smodel of intellectual and ethnical develop-ment. Perry's model states that there is a uni-versality to the freshmen-year experience.Perry also states that most freshmen enter col-lege during a phase described as dualism; andjust like it sounds, everything is either blackor white, right or wrong; up or down. This iswhy freshman students have a hard time tak-ing a test and doing well on it, because theprofessor does not tell them what to study.College is so different from high school whereall quarter long they were told what to study,what the questions were going to be, and howto take the test. At college they have a sylla-bus at the very beginning of the quarter andno clues after that. My favorite word to des-cribe a freshman is "clueless." Freshmen des-cribe themselves that way.

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One of the tasks that I have set for my-self is to educate my campus as best I canabout how freshmen really are. Perhaps thatmeans reminding other people what it waslike to be a freshman. I do think that fresh-men have changed a great deal. I find thatthey are very, very career conscious. Theycome in as first-quarter students and want tochoose a major, to get on track, and to neverdeviate. I asked freshmen in my orientationclass to write an essay on what they wouldlike to achieve by the end of fall quarter. Fiveout of 20 students told me that they wantedto be 100 percent adjusted to college life bythe end of fall quarterten weeks to accom-plish what many of us at age 35, 45, or 55have not yet accomplished. I think it is im-portant to discuss with them whether Ails is arealistic goal.

Freshmen are the group that deservesour time and our efforts. They are not yetcapable of thinking in multiple-level boxesand three-dimensional pictures. They are justtrying to get to class on time, and they arenot even succeeding at that sometimes.Freshmen are scared to go into the library.Freshmen are terrified to have attentiondrawn to them, and will go out of their wayto let no one know that they are freshmen.The orientation leaders usually ask the fresh-men what i3 the first thing that they are goingto do when they arrive on campus so that noone will know they are freshmen. Well, theyare going to throw away all of their orienta-tion materials because they would neverdream of pulling that out near a bus stop andletting someone see that it is freshmanmaterial. They also say they will not wearanything with a bulldog on itI don't thinkthat is really truebecause they think that iswhat identifies them as freshmen.

What are we doing at the University ofGeorgia to address freshman concerns? Oneactivity is the University 101 course which isfor freshmen and other first-quarter transferstudents. A second activity is targeting fresh-men and their parents. For the first time this

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FIGURE 2

SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATIONOF PERRY'S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

MAIN LINE OF DEVELOPMENT

The Modifyingof Dualism

1

1

The Realizing ofRelativism

The Evolving ofCommitments

2 3-1 I I 1 I

4 5 6 7 8 9

MAIN LINE OF DEVELOPMENT

> >-

RETREAT (-------"v ESCAPE

SOURCE: Adapted from William G. Perry, Jr. Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development inthe College Years: A Scheme. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968,p. 58.

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past summer every freshman's parent receiveda letter from me urging the parent to attendsummer orientation because I have found thatfreshmen do not want their parents "to tagalong id ask dumb questions." The reasonbeing that out of the crowd of 250 freshmen,someone might know that that was theirmother who asked that stupid question. Thefact that 200 other mothE s wanted to askthat same question is not the point. The pointis that their mother asked. We had a big in-crease in parent participation because of theway in which we wrote the letter. I wrote, "Ijust bet that your son or daughter has justsol, you a bill of goods on the summerorientation program. They just told you howimportant it is to learn how to become inde-pendent and that this is a good time to go offon their own and not have you along." I hadall the favorite arguments and, sure enough,parents looked me up at orientation anti said,"We had just had that conversation at thedinner table, I can't imagine how you knew."

Midway through the fall quarter wehave a second mailing for parents. It is a lettertelling them that if they have questions orproblems or just want to talk to somebody,they may call me. And call me they do! Themailing to parents is a very worthwhiie tool,not only from a public relations standpoint,but because it does convey the impression toparents and students that the University is nota large and impersonal place. We do careabout our students, particularly freshmen. Weare interested in their adjustment to collegeand we will do almost anything to help themachieve it.

A third activity is student surveys. Weadminister a retention surveya follow-upstudy of students who leave our institutionfor unknown reasons. We do attempt toscreen as many names off that list as possible,contacting or!y the people for whom we do

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not know anything. Reasons for leaving in-clude first and foremost that there is nomoney, parental problems, ill parents,marriage and family obligations, childrenneeding day-care arrangements, and illness ofthe student. Right behind those reasons thatwe do not think we can do much about are:uncertainty about degree and major, just notknowing why they are attending college,needing time off, and wanting to think aboutthe advisibility of attending college. Anotherreason for leaving the University is housingand roommatesoften an off-campus situa-tion. Students have a hard time being assertiveabout what their rights are in regard to livingarrangements.

We also survey our students about theiracademic advising. We poll seniors on the eveof graduationmost of them are in a five-yearprogramand we also poll our freshmen atthe end of the freshman year. We find dis-tinctly different responses on those twoquestionnaires. Over 75 percent of those twegroups have found the advising at UGA to beexcellent or good. When asked what thingstheir advisors need to improve, the freshmenresponded with the need to be loved more.The freshmen want someone who knowsthem, who recognizes them, who calls themby name, who has prepared the folder in ad-vance and does not seem to be surprised tosee them, and who asks about their well-beingfor the last two or three quai-ters. The seniors,on the other hand, do not care about personalattention, but are concerned with career in-formationwho gets jobs, .'hat jobs pay, howto get into graduate school, and can the advi-sor write a decent recommendation.

We do have a lot of data that we do notalways know how to interpret, or how to getit to the people who could use it; but, ifnothing else, we are alwzys willing to try anew program.

PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT:Can They Help in Retaining Students?

Cameron FincherRegents Professor and DirectorInstitute of Higher Education

Student retention is one of many per-ennial problems in postsecondary education.The reasons are both economic and educa-tional; they are also a functior of our in-excusably poor memoriesas societal institu-tions.

Indeed, the failures of institutionalmemory are responsible for many of the pro-blems we periodically encounter in educationbeyond the high school, problems that weapparently solve, and then re-solve, and thensolve again! Obvious examples are: (a) ourperiodic concern for marginal, underprepared,or educationally disadvantaged students; and(b) our continuous tinkering with admissionrequirements, academic standards, and themeasured outcomes of education.

Evidently we have not learned that ourinstitutional memories are similar in manyrespects to our individual memoriesthat is,well divided into short-term and long-termsubsystems. And unfortunately, we do notsufficiently appreciate in education that weare long on our long-term memories and veryshort on our short-term memories. As GeorgeMiller (1956) pointed out many years ago,most of us can retain only about seven speci-fic facts, items, bits-of-information in ourshort-term memories long enough to use suchinformation. Compare the ease with which werecall our home telephone number of sevendigits, as opposed to credit card numbers wemay have had for years.

Thus, most of us are heavily dependentupon our long-term memoriesthe subsystemin which we store information and knowledgefor later retrieval and transfer, application,use! When pegged to dramatic events (theassassinations of John F. Kennedy, RobertKennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.), mostof us can recall many events, names, places,

47

etc. for that particular time. Such memoriesneed not be significant or meaningfulandthey certainly need not causally relate to theevents with which they are strongly associat-ed.

In education historians are our bestlong-term memorists. We can thus read andremember much about the founding of ourinstitutions; the leadership of early presidents,deans, and directors; distant times of trouble;and obstacles or barriers that were overcomein the past. It is not unheard of for universitypresidents to know much about their prede-cessors a century-removed and nothing at allabout immejiate predecessors once or twiceremoved.

One reason, of course, Is the historian'sreluctance to write about the living a markof wisdom in a litigious age. Another is thehistorian's careful schooling in the "principleof diminishing coverage." To wit: the closeran event in time, the less that is said about it.This means, of course, that institutional ilisto-He: and historians are of little help in short-term institutional memories. To the contrary,neither historians nor educators think of re-cent events as being historyand we seldomrecord the details of specific, importantevents because we have an unwarranted faithin our personal short-term memoriesand weassume that others of comparable intelligence,education, and experience will recall institu-tional events with the same objectivity anddetailed facts that we ourselves do.

Why, then, a statewide conference inGeorgia on student retention in 1986? Grant-ing that student drop-out or withdrawal is aproblem that we have never solved in post-secondary education and granting the econo-mic argument that it is more cost/effective toretain sophomores and juniors than to recruit

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and admit freshmenand granting the detri-ment to public interest when 50 percent ofour entering freshmen leave college withoutcompleting their education, and even grantingour ethical obligation as educators to do allwithin our powers to retain and educate thoseadmitted to our institutionswe can still askwhy Sur collective memories are so poorwhen we try to recall what our schools, col-leges, and universities did the last time theysought constructive means cf retaining stu-dents?

One answer must be found in ourfailure to remember that forgetting is an ac-tive process. We have been greatly distractedin recent years and we have been activelyconcerned with other problems, issues, andchallenges confronting postsecondary educa-tion in a society that is increasingly pluralisticand increasingly diverse. There is great com-petition for the limited capacities of ourcollective storage facilities and there is muchinterference in the activation of our sluggishretrieval systems. Like many of our colleaguesand most of our studentswe did not ade-quately errode important information andexperiences because we were under no com-pulsions to do so. In other words, . 'e did notneed to remember and we didn't; we did notorganize our knowledge for storage and retrie-val and we did not plan for the future use ofthat knowledge; neither did we rehearse,repeat, or reinforce the lessons we presumablylearned; or to be irritatingly specific, wedidn't take good notes and we seldom bother-ed to review the skimpy notes we did take.We did not even use decent memory crutches(i.e. mnemonic devices) to aid recall. Inschool, few students fail to remember thatgeography can be spelled by recalling that"George Ellis' oldest g'i ran a pig homeyesterday" and some of us still remember thecolors of the Tee rum b,/ recalling an oldfriend named ROY G BIV.

Six Aids to Recall

The improvement of undergraduateeducation is, in the 1980s, the most impor-

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tant challenge confronting higher education.Since 1984 at !east six national commissionshave addressed the question of quality inundergraduate rrricula and teachingandeach has advocated substantive, pervasivereforms that imply we should recall what wesupposedly learned ;:g the past.

The National Institute of Education(NIE) report Involvement in Learning (1984)call^d for a more active participation of stu-dents in their undergraduate programs; theNational Endowment for the Humanities(NEH) report To Reclaim A Legacy (1984)advocated the restoration of the humanitiesto a central pos;tion in undergraduate curri-cula; and the association of American Col-leges (AAr) report Integrity in the CollegeCurriculum (1985) suggested ways in whichthe meaning and purpose of the baccalaureatedegree could be re-established Only two yearslater, the Education Commission of the States(ECS) issued a report on Transforming th,State Role in Undergraduate Education(1986); the American Association of StateColleges and Universities (AASCU) issued itsNational Commission on the Role and Futureof State Colleges and Universities' report ToSecure the Blessings of Liberty (1986); andthe Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-ment of Teaching (CFAT) completed a com-prenensive study of College: The bin:el--graduate Experience in America (1987).

Each report, in its own way, ri.-commends a return to earlier concepts, prin-ciples, and practices that have served post-secondary education well in the past, andeach deals directly with policies, programs,and educational purposes related to the reten-tion of students in postsecondary education.To some extent, all six reports are re-affirmatior s of a national faith in educationBut faulty recall is much in evidence, anddespite the emphasis given student learningand development, it is often necessary to readbetween the lines of each report. In brief,authors blessed with good memories are stilla rarity in academe'

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NIE, 'NEH, and AAC Reports:

In its dying gasp as a federal agency theNational Institute of Education severely criti-cized four-year colleges for not involving stu-dents more actively in their own education.The NEH report was a "clarion call" from thepen of its director to re-assert the rightfulplace of philosophy, literature, and history inundergraduate curricula. And the AAC, afterlong deliberation, sought its redefinition ofeducational meaning and purpose in whatmost of us would regard as traditional values.To reform undergraduate education, eachreport would require, if necessary, the exten-sion of degree programs to five yearsandeach would require evidence in a sessed, mea-sured, or evaluated form of institutional ef-fectiveness.

with all their limitations and misplacedemphases, how.ver, the NIE, NEH, and AACreports underscore the benefits of assessingstudent performance and informing studentsof the progress they are making (a concept orprinciple long known to learning theorists andresearchers as knowledge of results, the law ofeffect, or reinforcement); of seeking ways inwhic!, students can assume more responsibi-lity for their own learning and be encouragedto take a more active part (a well-establishedprinciple that active learning is superior topassive learningor effective learning is andmust be an active process); and in findingways whereby significance and meaning (theseare not terms used in the reports) can be re-stored to colleges' courses and curricula(vouchsafing a long-established conclusionthat meaningful relations can be perceivedare more readily mastered than insignificantor unrelated subject matter). In brief, likePeters and Waterman in their bestseller, InSearch of Excellence, the authors of the NIE,NEH, and AAC reports base their conclusionsand implic7,tions (directly or unknowingly) onpsychological principles of educatit n thatwere clearly established and propagateu in the1950s. Knowledgeable readers, with goodmemories, are unable to read in any of thethree reports any concepts, principles, or

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practices of teaching and learning that werenot widely known prior to the mid-sixties andthe many rapid changes the 1960s brought topostsecondary and higher education.

ECS, CFAT, and AASCIJ Reports:

The three reports issued in the closingmonths of 1986 tell much the same story.General and/or liberal education must be re-stored to a more central, basic, or embeddedposition in academic degree programs; teach-ing and learning must be given more emphasisas essential functions; and all educational in-stitutions must do a better job recruiting, ad-mitting, rotaining, educating, and graduatingstudents.

The ECS Report challenges postsecon-&dry institutions to help improve student pre-paration for college; to prepare admitted stu-dents for opportunities in a changing WO; is

force and society; to improve both particip-tion and completion rates; to do a better jobof meeting the diverse needs of students; andto assess (more effectively) student and i:isti-tutional performance.

The Carnegie Foundation reportwould turn every knob on higher education'simaginary control panel. Like Hubert Humph-rey, who was once accused of having moresolutions than the nation had problems, ErnieBoyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation,nay offer more solutions than institutionalattention spans and working memories canpossibly accommodate. The Carnegie Founda-tion report include_ recommendations for:

(a) the recruitment, selection, admission, andorientation of students;

(b) individual and institutional goals andvalues;

(c) basic skills in literacy and communica-tion;

(d) core curricula and field of specialization;

50

(e) faculty recognition and renewal;

(0 classroom teaching, learning, and evalua-tion;

(g) libraries and other learning resources;

(h) residential living and quality of campuslife;

academic governance;

community services and commitment; and

(i)

(h) mew firing college outcomes!

The AASCU report makes a more focusedand a more appealing argument. It asksdirectly (and quite sensibly) that state col-leges and universities "reorder our priorit-ies to make a full and unequivocal commit-ment to learning." In dog so, the report isnot embarrassed to speak of ignorance (in-stead of functional illiteracy) and undevelop-ed intelligence (instead of unrealized poten-tial).

Principles of Memory and Retention

The implications of human menoryand retention for education are as old asAristotle's principles of memory: similarity,contrast, and contiguityand as old as hisdistinction between remembering as the spon-taneous reproduction of past perceptions1,,laydreaming) and recall as the active searchfor past perceptions (concentrated thought).Not only are we likely to remember eventsthat are similar, events that are different, andevents that are close to each other in time andplace, we are also likely to remember:

(a) events that are repeated (the frequencyprinciple that appears time and time againin human thought and discussion concern-ing memory, retention, learning);

(b) events that involve emotional excitement(a principle of effect that also enters thepsychology of memory and learning invarious ways); and

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(c) events arranged in a "fixed order" (Ari-totle's version of meaning and significancein memory and learning).

In the early 19th century ThomasBrown, the Scottish philosopher, added toAristotle's principles of memory by pointingout the influence of: liveliness; recency; men-tal or to .rperamntal differences among peo-ple; their state of health; and their priorhabits engrained by experience.

Thus, the gradual conclusion that pri-mary, recency, and frequency are "fundamen-tal laws" of association. We remember and wecan recall with relative ease: events that arethe first of their Kind (our first day in school;our first year in college; etc.); events thathave recently occurred; and of course, repeti-tive events that occur with regularity or pre-dictable results.

Principles of Learning and Development

What, then, are the implications oflearning principles, principles of memory, andconcepts of development for the retention ofstudents in postsecondary education? Simplythis: in education we bore, alienate, turn off,flunk out, run off, fail to reach, and never getto know an inexcusable number of studentswho tell researchers that they: must drop outfor economic reasons; are leaving for familyor other personal reasons; have lost interest inschool; or simply that they had rather dosomething else! Only occasionally is it evidentfrom interviews with students or from theirratings of teaching effectiveness that there is avast generation gap between the learningneeds and interests of studentsand theteaching and research interests of faculty.Only occasionally is it clear that there aregreat discrepancies between our sales depart-ments (admissions) and our service depart-ments (college classrooms). And almost neverdo we fully appreciate the chasms that haveformed between the needs and expectationsof learners and the course objectives and in-dividual expectations of college teachers.

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If postsecondary institutions were totake seriously the challenge (AASCU report)of re-ordering their priorities "to make a fulland unequivocal commitment to learning," itis altogether possible that they could meet thechallenge (ECS report) to improve the parti-cipation and completion rates of both major-ity and minority groups in the American na-tion.

There are many concepts, principles,and practices to be found in the literature ofpsychological theory and research on humanlearning and development. Ebbinghaus' classicstudies of memory (1885) are now over ahundred years old, but they still containmuch that is relevant to postsecondary studyand learning. Much of what our students !earnis learned more effectively when distributedover a period of time, and repetition or sche-duled practice is not an archaic way of prepar-ing for occasions when students are expectedto recall what they presumably have beentaught. There are still goc -easons for classesin foreign languages and mathematics to meetfive days a week; and there are many reasonsto believe that history courses could meetonly two days a weekjust as there is amplyreason to suspect that literature and philoso-phy should not be taught in classes whereassigned readings cannot be discussed in aninformed and critical manner.

Even more relevant to the participationand involvement of students in learning is thequiet revolution that has taken place indevelopmental psychology over the past 30years. If, at one time, psychological applica-tions to education were caught up in a rush totest the many ways in which human beingsdiffer, to derive prediction equations and todevelop selective admission models, and toprove to the satisfaction of policymaker; thatacademic survival (and its counterpart acade-mic failure) were predictable, such nas notbeen the case in recent years. If, in the past,the many variations of human behavior andlearning were explained by individual capacit-ies, aptitudes, abilities, interests, dispositions,tendencies, and preferences, it makes more

51

sense in the 1980s to study the stage,, phases,levees, step- intervals of personal develop-ment that learners go throughoften at :iis orher own pace and without easy interventionsthat would accelerate or retard the process ofdevelopment. Also relevant is an equallydramatic revolution in cuznitive psychologywith profound (as opposed to popularized)implications for psychology.

It is thus possible that the basic under-lying expectation in higher education is thetransition of adolescents to adulthooda con-cept that has been much clarified in the past30 years but one that is still poorly under-stood when we discuss personal developmentand interpersonal competence. Yet, there isno great confusion of purposes when parents,taxpayers, employeLs, public leaders, andother stakeholders in postsecondary educa-tion tell us what kind of adult they want col-lege students to become. They ask for gra-duates who are: (a) economically productive;(b) socially responsible; and (c) personallyeffective. They would like to see in graduates:(d) some degree of aesthetic sensitivity; (e)evidence of religious, ethical, or moral tole-rance; and (f) a bit of appreciation for phys-ical health or adult fitness. They would nodoubt prefer graduates who are also: (g) poli-tically conservative; and (h) emotionallymature. And if graduates are also: (i) open-minded; (j) culturally informed; (k) technolo-gically sophisticated; and (I) able to discusssome of the world's better literature, philoso-phy, and socio-economic-political systems,that is the cultural frosting on their educa-tional cakes.

In many respects, we can say that learn-ing and development are the educational pro-cesses by which "the inputs" of growing,developing, maturing adolescents become"the outputs" of educated, self-governing,maturing adults. Or more accurately, perhaps,education is the learning and developmenta:processes by whid. college students replaceignorance (mistaken information and beliefs)with knowledge (higher-level orders ofinformation and beliefs); superstition

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(ineffectual effects tc control one's environ-ment) with competence (skills, abilities, pro-ficiencies); and prejudice (the prematureevaluation and judgment of individuals,groups, societies, and cultures) with under-standing (attitudes, beliefs, and values thatare infcrmed by experience).

Gilbert Ryle, an Oxford Universityphilosopher, has reminded us that: "Learninghow or improving in ability is not like learn-ing that or acquiring information. . . Truthcan be imparted (suddenly) . . . procedurescan only be inculcated . . . (gradually) . . ."(p. 59). Some of us have long believed thatknowledge can be equated with "learningthat" while the development of competence isequivalent to "learning how" and the nur-turance of understanding is a matter of"learning why." We have long been convincedthat psychological principles of learning anddevelopment can indeed be applied to the ac-quisition of knowledge, competence, andunderstandingand that education is bestappreciated as the conditions, situations, andopportunities by which learning anddevelopment occur.

In closing, it is well to add "a principleor two" concerning the application of learn-ing and development principles oi, collegecampuses. The first such principle is the sameas the first prh'ciple of medicine, Do NoHarm! This is simply to say that in applyingsound principles of memory and retention,the laws of associative learning, and/orThorndike's law of effect, we should interfereas little as possible with equally sound princi-ples of development. Those of us who teachshould always remember that learning takestime. To earn the 200 or so credit hours thatare required for most bachelor's degrees, moststudents require something in the neighbor-hood of 600+ learning hoursonly a third ofwhich is likely to be in a college classroom.

The assignment of meaningless or insignificantcourse readings and lab exercises, or the re-quirement of trivial term papers or projects,often interferes with the 400+ study hoursthe undergraduate student is supposed tohave.

Another over-riding principle, of whichall faculty members should be appreciative, isthat learning takes place elsewhere! Such isespecially true of the college student's per-sonal development, interpersonal skills andcompetence, and the majorityperhapsofthe informed attitudes, beliefs, ?nd valuesthat contribute so much to the individual'sgrowth, development, and maturity. Studentswill always learn more than they are taught inclass, and they will always read somethingother than assignments in textbooks. Andwhat they remember from the courses ,eteach so well is about 20 percent of the sub-stance and content we cover.

And so, we return to our short-termmemories. 1-60 much of what takes place ontoo many college campuses is "short-termlearning and development." And when would-be sophomores do not return for their secondfall quarter or semester, it could be that first-year experiences never reached their lont*-term memoriesand they didn't remembeto return!

REFERENCES

Miller, George A. The Magic Number ofSeven Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits onOur Capacity for Processing Informa-tion. Psychological Review, 1956, 62,81-97.

Ryle, Gilbei t. The Concept of Mind. NewYork: Barnes & Nobles University Paper-backs, 1949.

)Li) 9

PLACEMENT AND RETENTION IN REMEDIAL /DEVELOPMENTALPROGRAMS IN THE SREB STATES

Ansley A. Abraham, Jr.Southern Regional Education Board

Atlanta, Georgia

Postsecondary institutions have alwaystried to serve students in need of special assis-tance to achieve their educational goals. Forover a century, the lack of basic skills in post-secondary students seeking a college educa-tion has been a challenge to the higher educa-tion community. In the latter half of thenineteenth century, basic skills programsexisted at such schools as Cornell, Vassar, andYale (Brier, 1984). By 1915, special depart-ments to prepare students for meeting collegeadmission standards existed in over 350 col-leges and universities in the United States(Maxwell, 1980). And by 1984, over 82 per-cent of the approximately 2,800 institutionsof higher education in the nation offeredsome form of remedial or developmental edu-cation (Department of Education, 1984).

Initially, growth in remedial/developmental programs occurred as a resultof broadening educational access. Recentgrowth patterns have been spurred on by theemphasis placed on increasing educationalquality. Large numbers of students who lack-ed basic skills were admitted to college andsorely needed remedial instruction beforeundertaking college study. For example, theNew Jersey Basic Skills Assessment Programfound over 30 percent of their entering col-lege freshmen in need of remediation in read-ing, writing, and mathematics (Morante,Faskow, and Menditto, 1984). In Georgia, itwas estimated that 32 percent of the Georgiahigh school graduates going on to state col-leges in Georgia needed remedial help.Further, according to a 1984 federal survey,27 percent of all entering college freshmenwere enrolled in remedial mathematicscourses.

With such large numbers of underpre-pared students applying for college admis-sions, it is not surprising that recent educa-

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tional reforms stress the importance of raisingstandards and quality at the postsecondarylevel. Two important components of the stan-dards and quality issue are the placement andretention of students after admission tocollege.

Two prevalent trends are identified inresearch and literature. First, large numbers ofhigh school graduates are applying for collegewithout the basic skills necessary to do"college-level" work. Second, there are in-creasing numbers of remedial/developmentalprograms in existence at the collegiate level.However, what is not well established is whathappens to underprepared students after theyare admitted to college. This raises severalquestions: (1) What determines how institu-tions assess and place incoming students?(2) What kinds of assessment instruments andscores do institutions use for placement pur-poses? and (3) How effective are remedial/developmental programs at preparing studentsfor college-level work?

The SREB Study

A Southern Regional Education Board(SREB) survey of remedial/developmentalprograms in public two- and four-year institu-tions was conducted in 1986. Specifically, thesurvey c )ntained five major components: (1)placement criteria, (2) selecied remedial pro-gram descriptions, (3) policy and organiza-tion, (4) exit criteria, ana (5) evaluations.This paper focuses on two of these compo-nentsplacement criteria and evaluations.

The survey was sent to 489 of the 543public two- and four-year colleges in the 15SREB states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland,Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, SouthCarolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West

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Virginia.); 186 were four-year institutions and303 were two-year institutions. These institu-tions had to meet one of two criteria forinclusion in the study: they had to offer abachelor degree, or they had to offer theassociate of arts degree or degree transferablecredit. The overall response rate for the sur-vey was 83 percent; 88 percent for four-yearinstitutions and 79 percent for two-year insti-tutions.

Curriculum Placement

Institutions were asked to identify howthey determined whether students should beplaced in college-level curricula or in specialprograms to remedy deficiencies in reading,writing, and mathematics. Four responses arereadily identifiable by their frequency of use.Mandatory assessment and placement is firstamong these responses; it is used by over 42percent of the institutions. Although firstamong institutional responses, this still meansthat less than half of the institutions requireassessment and placement for incomingfreshmen, The second most frequent responseis faculty referrals, which is used by over 36percent of the institutions. The third responseis students who recognize their own deficien-cies and seek help (self-referral)used by over33 percent of the institutions. Finally, thosestudents entering college with low admissionscores is used by over 30 percent of the insti-tutions in the region (Table 1).

Test Variety

Table 1 shows mandatory assessmentand placement as the most popular means ofdetermining curriculum placement for entering college students. To further support thisfinding, an earlier studyusing these samesurvey dataidentified almost 100 combina-tions of about 70 different tests in the subjectareas of reading, writing, and mathematics toplace students in either college degree-creditremedial/developmental courses (Abraham,1986). These tests ranged in variety fromnationally-normed or standardized tests, suchas the American College Test (ACT) or Scho-

Abraham

lastic Aptitude Test (SAT), to in-house/insti-tutionally-developed tests.

The Abraham (1986) study also cate-gorized the different tests used for college-level placement into their subject area (read-ing, writing, or mathematics) of use. Forexample, in reading, 31 different tests areidentified by SREB institutions for the pur-pose of college-level placement. In writing, 30different tests are identified and in mathe-matics, 36 tests. These data clearly indicatethat a variety of tests are used by institutionsin the SREB region to place students at thecollege level.

The large variety of tests in use suggeststwo major implications. First, that thedifferent tests measure different abilities andskills. If this is the case, then it is quiteappropriate that different tests be used tofulfil different institutional purposes.Second, if these tests measure the same abili-ties and skills, then test selection is based onother factors. In this instance, it is reasonableto suggest that the large variety of tests im-plies a lack of standards on the tests and con-sensus among institutions on what is con-sidered "college-level" or "degree-credit"work.

Score Variation

The Abraham (1986) study also showsthat, in terms of placement, variety itself doesnot necessarily imply a lack of standards orconsensus among higher educational institu-tions on what constitutes college-level work.However, the study found that when combin-ing the variety of tests with score variationson those same tests, it is conclusive that thereis a lack of consensus among institutions re-garding placement standards necessary tobegin college-level/degree-credit work.

Remedial Programs and Retention

The second question addressed in thispaper concerns the effectiveness of retainingstudents once they have been admitted and

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TABLE 1

Distribution of Methods Used for Placementin Reading, Writing, and Mathematics

PlacementCriterion

ReadingNumber Percent

WritingNumber Percent

MathematicsNumber Percent

No test used 36 8.9 29 7.2 25 6.2Mandatory assessment

and placement 173 42.8 176 43.6 191 47.3Assessment and placement

for specific programs/Courses 54 13.4 57 14.1 67 16.6

Assessment and placementfor lack of high schoolcourse requirements 16 4.0 13 3.2 28 6.9

Assessment and placementfor low scores onadmission tests 132 32.7 140 34.7 123 30.4

Assessment and placementfor low high school GPA 13 3.2 12 3.0 10 2.5

Assessment and placementfor high school seniorclass rank 6 1.5 5 1,2 4 1.0

Student self-referral 140 34.7 135 33.4 138 34.2

Faculty referral 148 36.6 147 36.4 150 37.1

Other 47 11.6 ,is 11.9 50 12.4

NOTE: Each percent based on N = 404.

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adequately placed according to the standardsof the institution attended. Many studies havebeen conducted on the issues of studentretention and progression through the highereducational system. Few of these studies,however, are specifically conducted in thearea of remedial/developmental studies andtheir effectiveness. With minimal estimates of30 percent of all entering college students inneed of additional basic skills training, educa-tional research and policy can no longer af-ford to ignore this issue.

Any discussion of retention is likely tobe couched in a broader discussion of pro-gram effectiveness or evaluation. The SREBsurvey did not specifically address the issue ofretention in remedial/developmental pro-grams, but it did address program effective-ness/evaluations. Indicators of program effec-tiveness/evaluations are a useful means bywhich to gain insight into the issue of reten-tion in remedial/developmental studies. Threeindicators are taken from the remedial/developmental study and include: institu-tional follow-up studies, institutional evalua-tions, and comparative graduation rates ofremedial/developmental students and non-remedial students.

A review of the literature reveals that,perhaps, more questions are raised by con-cerns for retention in remedial programs thanthere are answers. Only recently has adequateresearch begun to address the many questionsassociated with the effectiveness of remedial/developmental programs. Cross (1976) pointsout that most studies completed before 1960showed generally positive results from reme-dial/developmental programs, but that mostof these studies were poorly designed andadministered. Research in the 1960s was emo-tionally charged and the focus was more ondefending remedial/developmental programsfor the "new students" entering higher educa-tion than for purposes for evaluation andeffectiveness. It was not until the mid-1970sthat research design and evaluation related tothese programs improved.

Abraham

Research in the 1980s has producedmixed results at best. For example, Maxwell's(1980) review of research indicated improvedgrades as a result of effective remedial/developmental studies. Evaluative studies of60 programs by Kulik, Kulik, and Schwa lb(1983) also concluded that remedial/developmental programs for underpreparedstudents are generally worthwhile and thatunderprepared students earned somewhatbetter grades in regular courses and stayed incollege slightly Innger than students in controlgroups. However, Roueche, Baker, andRoueche's (1984) analysis of two major stu-dies of postsecondary schools revealed thatvery few institutions evaluate or closely fol-low their developmental programs adequately;as such, it is difficult to fully estimate theimpact or effectiveness of these programs onstudent retention or achievement.

More recently, numerous state, na-tional, and commissioned studies have calledfor remedial/developmental program account-ability. An October 1986 national conferenceon exemplary developmental programs paidparticular attention to program effectivenessz.nd evaluation.

When asked if their institutions con-duct follow-up studies of students completingremedial/developmental programs, only 58.4percent of the institutions reported any kindof follow-up studies conducted on a regularbasis. More specifically, four-year institutions(67.9%) are more apt to conduct studentfollow-up studies than two-year institutions(52.8%).

In the SREB survey, institutions report-ed several ways in which they conduct evalua-tion of their remedial/developmental pro-grams. Student and instructor evaluationswere identified as two of the most popularmeans of evaluating remedial programs on aregular basis-62.6 percent and 52.0 percent,respectively (see Table 2). It is interesting thatevaluation activities that are more c;osely re-latet: to the issue of retention in remedialprograms are conducted by less than half of

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TABLE 2

Distribution of Regularly ScheduledRemedial/Developmental Program Evaluations

Types of Evaluation Number Percent

Student evaluations 253 62.6

Instructor evaluations 210 52.0

Rate of successful completiontf remedial activity 190 47.0

General faculty surveys 38 9.4

Follow-up studies of academic successof students completingremedial activities 136 33.7

Studies of course orprogram effectiveness 122 30.2

NOTE: Each percent based on N = 404.

TABLE 3

Distribution of Remedial VersusNonremedial Student Graduation Rates

Remedial vs. NonremedialStudent Graduation Rates Number Percent

No basis for comparison 254 66.1

Much better 5 1.3

Better 32 8.3

About the same 57 14.8

Worse 31 8.1

Much Worse 5 1.3

Total 384 100.0

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the institutions. For example, only 47.0 per-cent of the institutions reported that theyregularly evaluated the rate of successfulcompletion for remedial/developmentalactivities. Moreover, only about a third of theinstitutions (33.7%) included follow-up stu-dies of later academic success for formerremedial/developmental students as part oftheir programs' evaluation. Similarly, only30.2 percent of the institutions reported thatthey conducted studies of course and/or pro-gram effectiveness on a regular basis.

The third indicator taken from the sur-vey asked institutions to compare the gradua-tion rate of remedial and nonremedial stu-dents (Table 3). Almost 70 percent of the in-stitutions reported that they had no basis onwhich to make this determination. Over ninepercent of the institutions reported theirremedial student graduation rates as betterthan their nonremedial students. Also, overnine percent of the institutions reported theirremedial student graduation rates to be worsethan those of nonremedial students. Almost15 percent reported that the graduation rateswere about the same for the two groups ofstudents.

Conclusion

Several issues concerning placementand retention are brought to light in thispaper. First, it is clear that institutions use avariety of tests and variable test scores toplace students into remedial/developmentalprograms. These activities are time-consumingand costly. By comparison, once students areadmitted, institutions are less concerned withthe type and effectiveness of treatment stu-dents receive in remedial/developmentalprograms. When nearly !calf of the institutionsreport that they do not follow-up remedial/developmental students on a regular scheduleor in a systematic manner, many questionscan be raised about whether higher educationinstitutions are seriously concerned aboutpreparing underprepared students for college-level work.

REFERENCES

Abraham, Ansley. College-Level Study: WhatIs It? Issues in Higher Education. South-ern Regional Education Board, 1986, 22.

Brier, Ellen. BilLiging the Academic Prepar-tion Gap: An Historical View. Journal ofDevelopmental Education, 1984, 8(1),2-5.

Cross, K. Patricia, ed. Accent on Learning.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1976.

Department of EdLiration. Indicators of Edu-cation Status and Trends. Washington,DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,1985, p. 14.

Kulik, Chen-Lin C., Kulik, James A., andSchwalk, Barbara J. College Programs forHigh-Risk and Disadvantaged Students: AMeta-Analysis of Findings. Review ofEducational Research, Fall 1983, 53,397-414.

Maxwell, Martha. Improving Student LearningSkills. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

Morante, Edward A., Faskow, Shari, andMenditto, Irene. The New Jersey BasicSkills Assessment Program: Part II. Jour-nal of Developmental & Remedial Educa-tion, Spring 1984, 7, 6-9.

Roueche, John E., Baker, George A., andRoueche, Susanne D. College Responsesto Low-Achieving Students: A NationalStudy. Orlando, Florida: HBJ Media Sy-stems, 1984.

FACTORS INFLUENCING RETENTION INPRIVATE FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES

M. Willisia HolbrookWake Forest University

The following is an overview of theanalysis on the policies and programs whichseemed to influence retention at higher edu-cation institutions in Georgia. This analysiswas concluded in 1981. The primary focus ofthe paper is that part of the study which dealswith the most significant factors influencingretention in four-year private colleges anduniversities.

The survey instrument was modeledafter the one used 11,,' ACT/NCHEMS in the1979 national study entitled, "What Works inStudent Retention." The questionnaire soli-cited opinions from administrators, primarilyin the academic and student affairs areas, ateach of the 65 public and private colleges inthe state. Of the 22 four-year private institu-tions surveyed, 86 percent responded.

Four objectives of the study were toidentify and compare:

a. the status of campus concern withretention issues;

b. the factors contributing to or influenc-ing student retention on these cam-puses.

c. the current policies, programs, and ser-vices implemented in a specific effort toincrease student retention; and

d. the campus conditions important to thedevelopment and implementation of re-tention strategies.

Status of Concern with Retention

In the early 1980s, a substantial num-ber of four-year private colleges demonstratedconcern for retention issues on their campus-es. More than 95 percent of these schoolseither had completed a retention study orwere conducting one at the time of my sur-

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vey. Most of the colleges sought opinionsfrom currently enrolled students in thesestudies. Only about one-third of the institu-tions asked dropouts about their attitudes onretention efforts. Neither faculty, alumni,administrators, nor staff participated to anygreat extent in the retention surveys.

Other than these analytical studies, fewprivate colleges used any additional resourcesin planning or evaluating their efforts to re-tain students. While private institutions em-ployed off-campus consultants somewhatmore often than schools in other sectors, theplanning and evaluation of retention strategieswas primarily an "in-house" operation.

As was true nationally, four-year collegesin Georgia retained a higher percentage ofstudents until their senior year tnan didpublic schools.

Factors Contributing to Student Retention

Several campus characteristics and stu-dent traits appeared to influence retention toa greater extent in some institutional sectorsthan they did in others. Private colleges anduniversities ranked the lack of diverse extra-curricular activities as the primary campuscharacteristic contributing to attrition. Theseinstitutions also considered the existence ofrestrictive rules governing student behavior agreater negative factor in the retention pro-cess than did public colleges.

Private college administrators viewed thecampus characteristic "personal interest offaculty and staff in students" as more impor-tant to student retention than did administra-tors at public schools. The other two campuscharacteristics contributing most to retentionefforts were a consistent high quality ofteaching and adequate student financia: aid.Administrators in the private sector alsobelieved that encouraging student

60

involvement in the total campus experiencewas a positive retention strategy.

National research studies suggest thatcertain characteristics students bring withthem to the college experience can slow theirprogress of involvement in campus activities.Overwhelmingly, institutions in the privatesector in Georgia stated that low academicachievers had the highest chance of withdraw-ing before graduation. On the other hand,most administrators agreed that a low tobelow average relationship existed between astudent's commuter status and his potentialfor dropping out.

Current Policies, Programs, and Services

The effectiveness of college policies,academic programs, and student services re-cently implemented to improve retention didnot differ substantially by institutional sectoror level. Several four-year private colleges,however, did attempt to reduce the potentialnegative influence of certain student char-acteristics by developing specific programs de-signed to improve their campuses' retentioncapabilities.

A preponderance of these institutionsorganized some system for identifying andcommunicating with potential dropouts earlyin the students' program. These "early warn-ing systems," which were much less commonin public institutions, were rated as havingonly a moderate effect upon retention rates,however.

While private schools iaw academic ad-vising as substantially more important to stu-dent retention than did public schools, lessthan one-third of the private institutions hada formal policy which required the inclusionof advising effectiveness into faculty promo-tion and tenure decisions. However, almost 80percent of the private schools reported recentimprovements in their academic advising pro-grams as the most frequent strategy for in-creasing student retention. Among these im-provements were the employment of stu-dents as peer advisors, counselors, or tutors.

Holbrook

Few institutions in the private sectorconducted orientation classes for credit, butthose that did rated these classes as one of thethree most successful retention efforts. Theother two were improvements in academicadvising and the use of students as tutors,counselors, and peer advisors.

The final category of retention activit-ies evaluated in this study was the area of student services. These services as a whole con-sistently received higher marks across all sec-tors than did specific institutional policies orprograms. Because these services provide stu-dents opportunities for increased personalcontact with college staff and faculty, stu-dents may develop a higher level of integra-tion with the institution and thereby persistlonger.

Much has been written in the last de-cade concerning the theory of social integra-tion and its influence on retention. In mystudy, a larger percentage of private institu-tions indicated that a "good fit" between thestudent and the institution was a positive fac-tor in their retention efforts. More than anyother sector, private colleges agreed that spec-cial admissions materials which accuratelycommunicated the school's environment andvalue system enhanced student-institutionalcongruency or that "fit" between the studentand the college.

Private colleges regarded existing job-related training programs and expanded careerplanning services as moderately effective inincreasing retention rates. Services for adultlearners and minority students were rated asonly somewhat helpful.

Private schools aimed their retentionactivities less frequently than did public col-leges at commuter students and at high-riskstudents. Thus, in private institutions, reten-tion strategies were designed to a lesser extentfor low academic performers or students withskill deficiencies. In addition, most of thesecolleges apparently overlooked the specialneeds of minority students and adult learnersin planning their retention activities.

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Holbrook

Conditions Important for Successful Reten-tion Efforts

Less agreement existed among institu-tions in the pr;',ate sector on the conditionsimportant for successful retention efforts.Keeping this widespread response rate inmind, opinions of administrators at privatecolleges did seem to suggest, however, thatthe primary condition necessary forretention programs was the acceptance ofpolicy changes by the faculty. This conditionwas followed closely by the active supportand participation of administrators themselvesalong with their own execution of new rolesand responsibilities. Equally as important asthe administrators' acceptance of new roleswas the .students' acceptance of institutionalpolicy changes and the faculties' acceptanceof new responsibilities. Obviously, faculty andadministrators wore many hats in carrying outcampus retention strategies at private institu-tions.

The overall evaluation of total campusretention efforts at private four-year collegeswas less than positive. Almost 88 percent ofthe colleges and universities ranked the suc-cess of their retention programs in the little tomoderately effective range.

Summery

While private institutions in Georgia didexhibit some concern in the early 1980s forimproving student retention, their planningefforts focused primarily upon the opinionsof currently enrolled students rather than up-on students who had already withdrawn, orupon alumni, faculty, or staff. Campus condi-tions most likely to contribute to a student'sdecision to withdraw included schedulingconflicts between classes and job responsibili-ties, inadequate academic advising, and poorcounseling.

The three campus characteristics withthe greatest positive influence on retentionappeared to be the personal interest of facultyand staff in students, a consistent high quality

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of instruction, and adequate student financialaid.

All institutions generally agreed thatlow academic achievers and students withlimited educational aspirations had a highprobability of withdrawing from private col-leges. Therefore, the most frequently imple-mented retention strategy in this sector wasthe improvement of academic advising. Inaddition, administrators at private collegesviewed the acceptance of policy changes byfaculty as the most critical campus conditionfor successful mention efforts.

Conclusions

The major findings of this study indi-cate that, in the early 1980s, many four-yearprivate colleges in Georgia were not only con-cerned about student retention, but alsobegan revitalizing their student services andacademic advising programs in order to im-prove their retention capabilities. Most ofthese institutions apparently allocated ade-quate financial resources, sufficient personnel,and ample time for planning and evaluatingtheir retention strategies since these factorswere not seen as very significant for successfulimplementation. The acceptance of policychanges by faculty and the active support andparticipation from administrators were viewedas the most sig-rgicant factors in the success-ful implementation of these activities.

This study also suggests that institu-tional policies at private schools which facili-tate personal contact between students andfaculty, reward a consistent high quality ofteaching, and provide adequate student finan-cial aid have a positive impact upon studentretention.

Student retention rates can be increas-ed substantially if private institutions arecommitted to a more critical examination ofthe educational and personal needs of theirstudents as well as the college's own mission,procedures, and behaviors. To increase reten-tion rates, each private four-year college

62

should evaluate its own policies, programs,and services to determine which ones requirerevision in order to provide all students a

higher quality and a more personal educa-tional experience. Greater increases in reten-

Holbrook

tion can result from a campuswide organiza-tion and commitment to the delivery of qua-lity academic and support service s tostudents.

69

RETENTION PROGRAMS THAT WORK IN PRIVATE TWO-YEAR COLLEGES

Ronald WeitmanTruett-McConnell College

As we look today at the problem ofretention, it was about 27 years ago that Iaccepted my first t)osition as a c, liege admini-strator in a private four-year college. Sincethen I have beer, concerned about how to getstudents, how to keep thi...i, and what to dowith them in between When I became theexecutive vice pr' .vent and academic dean ofa four-year college, one of my charges was toupgrade the college academically. I was toldby the board that it was also necessary thatthe college increase student enrollment inorder that we might pay our bills a littlefaster. We were able to recruit more studentsand we enrolled 200 more freshmen eachyear. We required each student to take anorientation program during fall quarter. Wethought they were happy.

The president cm that college was atraveling man who did what most private col-lege presidents do to survive, and that is to goout and beg for money to keep us open, so hewas gone most of the time. But that first year,I noticed that he came back on campus some-time just before the Thanksgiving feast and hewas there through Christmas. Suddenly inJanuary when we started school again, wewere missing about 50 percent of our stu-dents. This happened again the fo lowingyear. So : said, "Well, something is happeninghere. We had them happy, the president camein and made them unhappy." When I foundthe courage, I went to the president and verypolitely talked with him. I said, "You know,we really have a problem." He said, "Dean,what is the problem?" Well, I wanted to say,"You are the problem," but I could not reallysay that at the time. I did say it a few yearslater and then went looking for another job.But I said to him, "In handling and workingwith these collegt, students, there are certainthings that we must do. We are bringing insome very good students and we are losing alot of them." Then I pointed out a few

63

things: he would go around the campus and ifa student dropped a coke bottle in the wrongplace, the student spent thirty minutes listen-ing to the president tell him first how terribleit was to drink Coca Colaalthough we hadabout 50 machines on campusand then allof the other things regarding soft drinks anddisposing of the bottles properly. He lookedat me, smiled, and said, "Dean, we are goingto operate this college whether we have a stu-dent or not." I looked at him and I said, "Forwhat?" So, I was first to confront him withthe situation, and I said to myself, "If I

should ever become president, I will nevermake that mistake."

I became a president and I made thatmistake. I would love to have operated aschool many times without any students. Butyou cannot do that and pay the bills, youhave to work with students. As someone whohas served as president and vice president, I

know that if you do not have support fromthe top, then you are going to have a problemat the bottom in keeping students on a smallcollege campus. You really cannot do it with-out the involvement of the president ;iidother administrators.

My comments here will be rather prag-matic, but I will tell you some of the thingsthat we did, some of the things that worked,and some of the reasons why I think theyworked. Since the University of Georgia is myalma mater, I know the University quite well.I have always felt a friendly atmosphere here,and it has good leadership. For the 14 yearsthat I was just 60 miles up the road, this Univ-versity received more of our graduates thanother college in the state. Therefore, I amfamiliar with the University's activities and itsatmosphere. Some of the same pr'iciples ofretention that apply to small college situa-tions certainly apply to any college or univer-sity.

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One thin, i would mention is the oicisaying,"first impressions are lasting," which :5very true. If you 3 not make some type ofpositive impression on the students within thefirst two week, of their arrival on campus,you are going to have a hard time doing it inApril. When students come to the campusthey are very emotional because they areaway from home. They are susceptible to fre-quent illnesses, especially when class timecomes. Sometimes as a young person I used tolaugh at that, but they are frequently sick andbecome easily upset. Some of the problemsthat we perceive to be little, to them aremountains larger than anything that can beconceived. Later, after they settle in a bit,students begin to see things differently. Thefirst two weeks are the most crucial in pre-venting problems that could otherwisedevelop later in the year.

We also need to remind ourselves whilein the college environment and in dealing withretention, recruiting, and anything else thatinvolves the human element, we live in what istailed an aspirin society. When we have aheadache we do not bother to find out whywe havo a headache, we just take an aspirin.The next day that same headache returns andwe take another aspirin. We in educationsometimes forget the universal law of causeand effect. The law being that when there is acondition, there is a cause. Sometimes wetreat the condition and do not consider thecause. I have counseled with many small pri-vate colleges with serious financial problems.They want an immediate solution withoutlooking for causes of their problems. If a mil-lionnaire would give them five million dollars,it would be wonderful. But within three yearsthey would again have those same financialdifficulties because they had not solved theoriginal problems. In education, we must lookbehind the condition or effect to the cause.We must do the same thing in retention.

I became president of a small collegewhere we needed students. We dealt withproblem by using three pragmatic approaches.First, ,.ve had to find out why they came to

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Weitman

our coiiege. What did the recruiters teii them?How many of you really know what the re-cruiters tell applicants about your college?had a certain recruiter who would travelthrough Florida and convince everyone therethat we had snow all the time in Cleveland,Georgia. We were in a beautiful part of themountains and we did get a small amount ofsnow. Honestly, we had quite a few studentsfrom Florida, but when we did not get thesnow, we had real problems. Although snow issomething that the president of the collegecannot control, I did have a student groupcome to me and suggest that we considerbuying a snow machine from one of the re-sorts in the mountains. What are your recruit-ers telling about your college?

Secondly, what do your publicationstell them? How ma.1y of you spend enoughtime reading and familiarizing yourself withthem? When a student realizes what he or shereads in the catalog contradicts tl.e way thingsactually are, you have a real problem.

Finally, what was the deciding factorthat brought the student to your campus?When I arrived on campus as the new presi-dent, I talked with many students to find outwhy they had chosen to attend Truett-McConnell. The answers varied drastically sowe had to sift through them. Some studentscame to see snow, some came because theyhad a boyfriend or a girlfriend attending thecollege. We found that many had come be-caust. of what the recruiters had said and be-cause of the location, the cost, and the friendsthey had ).here. We found that some came be-cause we were associated with a religious de-nomination, and believe it or not, we had alot of students come because we have regula-tions. Now, some of you may think that isstrange, but some of the best colleges andfastest growing colleges are those which ex-pect decent behavior from students. And,students will try their best to live up to yourexpectations of them. The expectations ofothers will many times determine the successof students and their willingness to learn.You must make your expectations known.

Weitman

One reponse that bothered me was thatwe did not find many students who came forthe academics. I realized we were losing a lotof students because we were not known foracademics. We had to make up our minds asto why we were in business. Before you canmake decisions on retention, you must decidewhat your purpose is as an institution. :loware you portraying your school and whomare you recruiting? Realizing that not every-one should stay once they have arrived, therez-,: some students who need to leave. I havereferred students to the University of Georgia,North Georgia College, Gainesville Junior Col-lege, and to many other places. I did that be-cause it was evident that Truett-McConnelldid not have w!-,,t they were looking for in acollege. If your recruiters understand whatthe purpose of your college is, chances areyou can obtain a higher retention rate. But ifyou are not being selective in your recruiting,and you have a college with unclear purposes,you retention rate will be much lower.

Next, we had the problem of why werethey leaving. A national retention study in1979 indicated some of the reasons for dis-satisfaction and some of the causes for satis-faction. Some of the negative factors in stu-dents' decisions to leave were: inadequateacademic advising, inadequate curricularofferings, conflicts experienced by those whohad jobs, inadequate financial aid, inadequatecounseling and support systems, nci inade-quate extracurricular offerings. They alsofound the most positive factor to be the car-ing attitude shown by the faculty and staffand people at the college who are involvedwith students. High quality teaching meansthat a student who makes some progress willbe happy and, therefore, will have a tendencyto want to stay longer than a student who cannot make progress. Other positive factors in-clude adequate financial aid, student involve-ment in campus life, and high quality advis-ing.

Why did they leave? Every time some-one left, if possible, we had an exa interview.If we were unable to get the interview beforeleaving the college, as president of the college,

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I would try to contact them through everypossible means. I would sit down in the livingroom and talk with the student and his or herparents. I said to them, "What did we do?"And in that way, I would get a candid answer.

Poor advising which placed students inclasses that they should not have been incaused some to leave. Program and curriculumofferings waa a problem because we did nothave the courses they wanted. And again, thecause was bad recruiting. The one thing thatyou must insist upon in the recruitment of astudent is honesty on the part of thoserecruiting. Whether recruiters, the president,dean, or friends, you must insist they behonest about your college. If your collegecannot offer students what they want, underno circumstances indicate that you can. Atthe University of Georgia one may have onedissatisfied student among 20,000 or 30,000and yet not have much of a ripple. But in asmall college with 400 to 800 Students, theripple effect is great.

At Truett-McConnell we improved ouracademic advisement program by assigningonly faculty who were interested in advising.In the past, we did not assign students indis-criminately to faculty, but we 'lid require allfaculty to advise. We began offering intensetraining for the faculty that were interested inacademic advisement. That was one of thebest things we did as it defln: ;ly reduced ourwithdrawals.

We also put into action a systematicand periodic review of our curriculum offer-ings This keeps an even balance between thecourses offered and those in greatest and leastdemand.

We also tried to identify for our re-cruiters the student; that they had brought tothe campus and hold the recruiters account-able to the students for two quarters. Theymet and talked with those students every timethey were on campus. You would not believewhat that did for the students, to know thatthe recruiter wanted to find out how theywere doing.

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Another change I made as presidentwas to have regular staff meetings with every-one who worked at the college and had directcontact with the students. Do you realize thatmost of the conversations the students haveare with secretarial and clerical personnel, notwith faculty? I had a staff member who wasvery personable and warm toward people butstudents and parents complained that theywere not allowed to speak with him. I foundthat hard to believe until I found that his se-cretary was turning people away and notallowing them personal contact with thestaff member. By involving everyone who hadpersonal contact with the students in the re-tention process, they understood how impor-tant they were in the effort to retain morestudents.

Another reason often cited for leavingwas financial aid. Yet we had a policy that nostudent would ever be turned down fromTruett-McConnell because of money and, to

Weitman

the best of my knowledge, in fourteen yearsthat never happened. I would ask studentstwo questions: Do you want to go to college?Are you willing to work? Now, I cannot domuch with someone who is not willing towog k.

Let me conclude by saying That to re-tain students, the development of a personalrelationship with the student is of paramountimportance. Even in a large university, therehas to be some type of personal contact. Aswe work on the problem of retention weshould remember that sZlidents wadi to knowthat they are wanted, and that someone isconcerned with their individlia! problems.Everyone up and down the ladder of com-mand should be involved. As we work withstudents in a small college setting, we canbecome more intimate and more personal.That is our "trump card" in the game ofretention.

RATES OF STUDENT RETENTION IN DeKALB TECH PROGRAMS

Berman E. JohnsonDeKalb Area Technical School

The purpose of this study was to de-scribe the rates of student retention in theprograms at De Kalb Area Technical School.The study pinpointed student retention ratesfor De Kalb Tech's vocational-technical pro-grams by following students from applicationthrough graduation/completion. Since studentretention is crucial to institutional stability,the study sought to reveal areas where fac-ulty, administrators, and staff could take ac-tion to improve the academic persistence ofstudents.

Unlike "The De Kalb Tech RetentionStudy" (Johnson, 1985) which focused uponthe reasons for the lack of retention, thisstudy focused upon percentage rates of appli-cants and students in the matriculation pro-cess. It identified four basic stages where stu-dent retention is important: application,acceptance, enrollment, and graduation/competion. Since all applicants and studentspass through one or more of these stages, thestudy identified areas related to the stageswhere retention rates appear to be problema-tic. Although student retention rates differfor each program, it was felt that this studycould determine where program resourcescould be allocated and concentrated moreeffectively.

Statement of the Problem

Each year a large number of personsapply at DeKalb Tech while a smaller numbercomplete a program of study. Program entryrequirements, dual enrollment at DeKalb Col-lege, and varying program standards influencethese numbers. Also, factors such as programswitching, developmental studies require-ments, course scheduling, and student drop-out influence timely program completions.

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DeKalb Tech faculty, administrators,and staff were concerned that a failure to re-tain students presents a threat to academicallysound programs which are needed to servecritical areas of employment. It was felt thatidentifying where students fail to persistcould be helpful to marketing, student re-cruitment, student counseling, program im-provement, and other areas important for in-stitutional growth and stability.

The study posed the following basicquestion: What are the retention rates ofapplicants and students who are scheduled toprogress through the four basic stages ofDeKalb Tech programs? The study was limit-ed to applicants and students in full-time dayprograms during the ten-quarter period bet-ween January 2, 1984 to June 6, 1986.

Application in this study is defined asthe proper submission of an application formto DeKalb Tech Admissions. During the im-plementation of this study, there was noapplication fee and applications could besubmitted at four campus locations.

Acceptance in a DeKalb Tech programindicates that the applicant has met all the en-try requirements for a selected program. Itdoes not include acceptance in DeKalb Techoptions such as the Evening Program,developmental studies, pre-technical courses,the Occupational Resource Center, AdultGeneral Education, or other important short-term studies.

Enrollment is defined as student regis-tration in one or more courses in a DeKalbTech full-time day program.

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Graduation describes the satisfactoryfulfillment of program requirements whichlead to a diploma or a degree. Completiondescribes conditions wherein an enrolledstudent is job-placed before fulfilling theprogram requirements. Therefore, graduation/competion describes program leavers who arejob-ready by virtue of academic credentials oremployer selection.

Review of Related Literature

Most recordet; retention studies inpostsecondary institutions attempt to providereasons why students are not retained. jobconflicts were the most often cited reasonfound in "The De Kalb Tech RetentionStudy" (1,1, ohnson, 1985). The results showedthat a large portion of De Kalb Tech studentshave part-time and full-time job commit-ments. It was recommended that better mar-keting techniques, more personalized studentservices, and flexible course schedules beestablished to attract as well as to retain stu-dents who work.

It appears that the most productiveefforts in retention will be made while stu-dents are still in school. Marin CommunityCollege conducted a study to determinewhether direct mail and telephone contactswith dropouts could have a positive effect onthe student return rate (Stetson, 1984). Thestudy treated four dropout groups: one whichreceived a letter and a telephone call encou-raging their return, a second which receivedtelephone calls only, a third which receivedletters only, and a fourth which was not con-tacted at all. The findings showed that directmail and telephone contacts with studentdropouts had no significant effect on the stu-dent rate of return to the institution.

Faced with low rates of retention,Santa Barbara City College established acommittee to assess the effectiveness of itssupport services. The committee recommend-ed: (a) assessment of students enrolled inreading, writing, ESL, and certain mathe-matics courses; (b) group advisement for new

Johnson

students prior to registration; (c) early warn-ing and coordination of support services; (d)the development of activities and programs toimprove the match between institutional goalsand the needs and expectations of students;and (e) the development of honors courses. Itwas found that retention rates were increasedafter the implementation of the recommenda-tions (Cohen, 1984).

Nespor and Roueche (1983) contendthat studying scholastic probation is a legiti-mate alternative to studying student reten-tion. They conducted a mini-study of attri-tion, probation, and literacy at The Universityof Texas at Austin. It was found that studentson academic probation frequently enroll incourses without completing the prerequisites,they overly represent the minority popula-tions, and they frequently are not aware ofthe academic implications of their status.Nespor and Rouc:ie concluded that majorfactors wh:ch should be considered are (a) theacademic reasons for which students dropoutor are suspended, (b) the institutional defini-tions of attrition, and (c) the procedures usedto monitor the success or failure of students.

The related literature disclosed no stud-ies which dealt with retention rates of appli-cants and students as they progressed throughthe basic stages associated with programs inthe matriculation process. However, in per-sonal contacts the investigator found thatsuch studies are sometimes conducted in insti-tutions at the department or division levelwithout benefit of publication. It appears thatthe results of these studies are deemed impor-tant for decision-making but are not readilysh?red with other institutions.

Methodology

The study required applicant and stu-dent data from several DeKalb Tech sources.The Records Office supplied applicant data,the Admissions Office supplied acceptancedata, and the Administrative Computing Cen-ter supplied enrollment ind graduation data.Each source provided the names and social

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Johnson

security numbers of persons who were classi-fied in one of the four basic stages during thelimitations of this study.

The sample reflected applicants toDeKalb Tech programs since January 2, 1984who were identified with program scheduleswhich could be completed by June 6, 1986.Persons who applied before January 2, 1984,although they may have progressed throughone or more of the four basic stages duringthe limitations of this study, were not includ-ed in the sample. These parameters limitedthe sample to 5,592 persons, a number re-flecting less than one-fourth of those whowere classified in one of the four basic stagesduring the ten-quarte, period. Also, theseparameters generated sample portions whichvaried by program and by stage.

Data for the applicants and studentswere entered into the IBM Computer utilizingthe statistical package of LOTUS 1-2-3. Foreach program, percentages were extractedwhich reflected student retention rates for thefollowing four areas:

Area One: From Application toAcceptance

Area Two: From Acceptance to En-rollment.

Area Three: From Enrollment toGraduation/Completion.

Area Four: From Application toGraduation/Completion.

Results and Discussion

Student retention rate percentages inthis study are described for 30 DeKalb 1 echprograms and are shown in Tables 1 through5. Table 1 indicates the retention rate per-centages of DeKalb Tech applicants for AreaOne: from Application to Acceptance. It alsoindicates the program length and the originalsample portion for each program. These sam-ple portions are the program groups that were

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identified and followed through the four basicstages. For example, it can b, seen that duringthis study 127 persons applied in theAccounting Technology Program and 60percent were accepted. It can also be seenthat in the Emergency Medical TechnologyProgram 219 persons applied and 39 percentwere accepted. In all programs, 47 percent ofthose who applied were accepted while theremaining 53 percent were referred to otherDeKalb Tech options.

Table 2 indicates retention rate per-centages for Area Two: from Acceptance toEnrollment. It can be seen that the 60 percentstudent retention rate previously described inthe Accounting Technology Program examplenow indicates a reflective sample portion of76. Also, the 39 percent student retentionrate previously shown in the EmergencyMedical Technology Program example nowindicates a reflective sample portion of 85.These examples show that there were 76 per-sons who were accepted into the AccountingTechnology Program and 85 in the Emer-gency Medical Technology Program, andtheir retention rate percentages leading to en-rollment were 72 percent and 91 percent re-spectively. In all programs, 76 percent of thesample who were accepted subsequentlyregistered for enrollment.

Table 3 indicates retention rates forArea Three: from Enrollment to Graduation/Completion. It also indicates the number ofgraduation/completions in this study. Theexamples described in Tables 1 and 2 nowshow that there were 55 persons who enrolledin the Accounting Technology Program and77 in the Emergency Medical TechnologyProgram. It also shows that 69 percent and100 percent respectively accomplishedgraduation/completion. In all programs, 58percent of the sample who enrolled accom-plished graduation/completion.

Table 4 provides program retentionrates for Area Four: from Application toGraduation/Completion, the area which in-cludes all the basic stages of matriculation, It

70 Johnson

Table 1

Area One: Student Retention Rates From Application To Acceptance

Program Name

ProgramLength(qtrs.)

SamplePortion

RetentionRate

Percentage

Acccounting Technology 4 127 60Automotive Technology/Auto Mechanic 4, 6, & 7 338 66Commercial Art 4 135 57Cost aology 4 492 41

Data Processing Operations 2.5 288 67Data Processing Technology 6 754 23Diesel Truck Maintenance 4 55 56Drafting 4 193 55Early Childhood Paraprofessional 4 222 46Electromechanical Engineering Technology 6 127 13

Electronics Engineering Technology 6 206 32Electronics Maintenance Technology 6 102 84Emergency Medical Technology 2 219 39Executive Secretary 4 83 61

Heating, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning 4 & 6 272 69Legal Secretary 2.5 64 50Machine Tool Operation 4 108 80Mechanical Engineering Technology 6 51 24Medical Lab Technology 8 107 29Medical Office Assistant 4 110 61

Medical Secretary/Transcriptionist 2.5 51 33Offset Printing 4 128 65Opthalmic Dispensing 6 105 54Phlebotomy Technician 1.5 81 67Practical Nursing 4 495 39Radio & TV Servicing 4 160 59Secretarial Program 4 159 61

Surgical Technology 4 127 35Welding 4 & 6 106 60Word nrocessing 2.5 127 32

All Programs 5,592 47

Johnson 71

Table 2

Area Two: Student Retention Rates FromAcceptance To Enrollment

Program NameSamplePortion

RetentionRate

Percentage

Accounting Technology 76 72Automotive Technology/Auto Mechanic 223 74Commercial Art 77 88Cosmetology 202 71Data Processing Operations 193 77Data Processing Technology 173 50Diesel Truck Maintenance 31 90Drafting 106 66Early Childhood Paraprofessional 102 85Electromechanical Engineering Technology 17 31Electronics Engineering Technology 66 94Electronics Maintenance Technology 86 71Emergency Medical Technology 85 91Executive Secretary 51 71Heating, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning 187 79Legal Secretary 32 97Machine Tool Operation 86 90Mechanical Engineering Technology 12 67Medical Lab Technology 31 83Medical Office Assistant 67 69Medical Secretary/Transcriptionist 17 100Offset Printing 83 78Opthalmic Dispensing 57 84Phlebotomy Technician 54 81Practical Nursing 193 75Radio & TV Servicing 94 72Secretarial Program 97 70Surgical Technology 44 91Welding 64 81Word Processing 41 98

All Programs 2,647 76

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Table 3

Johnson

Area Three: Student Retention Rates From Enrollment ToGraduation/Completion

Program NameSamplePortion

Graduation/Completion

RetentionRate

Percentage

Accounting Technology 55 38 69Automotive Technology/Auto Mechanic 164 79 48Commercial Art 68 41 60Cosmetology 143 96 66Data Processing Operations 149 99 66Data Processing Technology 87 20 24Diesel Truck Maintenance 28 22 79Drafting 71 29 41Early Childhood Paraprofessional 88 53 60Electromechanical Engineering Technology 5 1 20Electronics Engineering Technology 62 19 31Electronics Maintenance Technology 61 13 21Emergency Medical Technology 77 77 10GExecutive Secretary 36 29 81Heating, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning 148 100 68Legal Secretary 31 16 52Machine Tool Operation 77 46 60Mechanical Engineering Technology 8 1 13Medical Lab Technology 26 17 65Medical Office Assistant 46 36 78Medical Secretary/Transcriptionist 17 12 71

Offset Printing 65 28 43Opthalmic Dispensing 48 29 60Phlebotomy Technician 44 36 82Practical Nursing 145 91 63F'adio & TV Servicing 68 17 25Eecretai ial Program 69 31 45Surgical Technology 41 28 68Welding 52 21 40Word Processing 40 37 93

All Programs 2,020 1,162 58

79

Johnson 73

Table 4

Area Four: Student Retention Rates From Application ToGraduation /Completion

Program NameSamplePortion

Graduation/Completion

RetentionRate

Percentage

Accounting Technology 127 38 30Automotive Technology/Auto Mechanic 338 79 23Commercial Art 135 41 30Cosmetology 492 96 20Data Processing Operations 288 99 34Data Processing Technology 754 20 3

Diesel Truck Maintenance 55 22 40Drafting 193 29 15Early Childhood Paraprofessional 222 53 24Electromechanical Engineering Technology 127 1 1

Electronics Engineering Technology 206 19 9Electronics Maintenance Technology 102 13 13Emergency Medical Technology 219 77 35Executive Secretary 83 29 35Heating, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning 272 100 37Legal Secretary 64 16 25Machine Too! Operation 108 46 43Mechanical Engineering Technology 51 1 2Medical Lab Technology 107 17 16

Medical Office Assistant 110 36 33Medical Secretary/Transcriptionist 51 12 24Offset Printing 128 28 22Opthalmic Dispensing 105 29 28Phlebotomy Technician 81 36 44Practical Nursing 495 91 18Radio & TV Servicing 160 17 11

Secretarial Program 159 31 19Surgical Technology 127 28 22Welding 106 21 20Word Processing 127 37 29

All Programs 5,592 1,162 21

so

74 J oh nscin

Table 5

Student Retention Rates For Areas One, Two, Three, and Four

Program Name

Retention Rate PercentagesArea Area Area AreaOne Two Three Four

Accounting Technology 60 72 69 30Automotive Tech./Auto Mech. 66 74 48 23Commercial Art 57 88 60 30Cosmetology 41 71 66 20Data Processing Operations 67 77 66 34Data Processing Technology 23 50 24 3

Diesel Truck Maintenance 56 90 79 40Drafting 55 66 41 15Early Childhood Parapro. 46 85 60 24Electromechanical Eng. Tech. 13 31 20 1

Electronics Engineering Tech. 32 94 31 9Electronics Maintenance Tech. 84 71 21 13Emergency Medical Tech. 39 91 99 35Executive Secretary 61 71 81 35Heating, Ref. & A/C 69 79 68 37Legal Secretary 50 97 52 25Machine Tool Operation 80 90 60 43Mechanical Eng. Tech. 24 67 13 2Medical Lab Technology 29 83 65 16Medical Office Assistant 61 69 78 33Medical Secretary/Trans. 33 100 71 24Offset Printing 65 78 43 22Opthalmic Dispensing 54 84 60 28Phlebotomy Technician 67 81 82 44Practical Nursing 39 75 63 18Radio & TV Servicing 59 72 25 11

Secretarial Program 61 70 45 19Surgical Technology 35 91 68 22Welding 60 81 40 20Word Processing 32 98 93 29

All Programs 47 76 58 21

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Johnson

can be seen that 30 percent of those whoapplied in the Accounting Technology Pro-gram and 35 percent of those who applied inthe Emergency Medical Technology Programcompleted the cycle to accomplish gradua-tion/completion. In all programs, 21 percentof the sample accomplished graduation/completion during the limitations of thisstudy.

In Table 4 it appears that programswhich compete for enrollment with otherinstitutions have lower rates of retention.Notable among these are the Data ProcessingTechnology Program and the engineeringtechnology programs with complete cycle re-tention rates of only 3, 1, 9, and 2 iercentrespectively. Higher entry requirements aswell as level of program difficulty maycontribute to this condition. It also suggeststhat students take longer to complete someprograms and may require wider course op-tions.

Table 5 provides a composite view ofthe retention rates.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The student retention rate percentagesfound in this study reflect student traits andcurriculum structure peculiar to De Kalb Tech.However, they are symptomatic of conditionswhich can be found in most vocational-technical schools in Georgia. The findingstherefore have statewide as well as local im-plications.

Low student retention rates found insome areas of this study should not be con-strued at: program deficiencies. The samplelimitations of the study, type of program,frequency of program starts, and frequencyprogram offerings are factors which should beconsidered. Therefore, program by programcomparisions of student retention rate per-centages can be misleading, and each programshould be evaluated individually. Since thedata were generated during a ten-quarterperiod when student retention appeared to be

75

most problematic, a caretul examination ofthe percentage rates can provide valuable in-sight to problems which deter students fromgainful academic persistence.

De Kalb Tech's new status as a degree-granting institution may require a differentapproach in the academic community.De Kalb Tech's program of studies couldbetter accommodate students who want topursue a credential while attending classestwo or three days per week during the morn-ings, afternoons, evenings, and on Saturdays.Such innovations will require a course-basedrather than a program-based curriculum. Itwill also require a re-orientation to coursescheduling, a re-definition of the full-timestudent, and a revision of student follow-upprocedures. With these innovations alone,De Kalb Tech's program of studies will beginto look more like that of a two-year colle-giate institution.

The findings suggest that man De KalbTeel. students take longer than the scheduledprogram lengths to complete their studies. Itappears to be common for a student to tem-porarily drop out or to take a lighter load forone or more quarters and then resume a pacetowards program completion. It is recom-mended that De Kalb Tech provide conditionswhich better accommodate students who de-sire longer or less structured periods ofmatriculation. Such conditions could includethe development of: (a) more multiple pro-gram starts, (b) more multiple program courseofferings, (c) more individualized instruction-al programs, (d) more courses with contentand standards which meet the needs of severalprograms, and (e) more course offeringsduring the evenings and on Saturdays whichsatisfy degree and diploma requirements.

It is recommended that De Kalb Techmove towards a better coordinated day-evening merger which: (a) recognizes the fullpotential of both efforts in providing creden-tials, (b) eliminates any credit differencesbetween day and evening courses which havethe same content, and (c) establishes the

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76 Johnson

program of studies as a continuous 7:00 a.m.to 10:00 p.m. six day per week activity. It isrecognized that such innovations may requireinput from state authorities. However, such amerger may be necessary if the tech schoolsin Georgia re to successfully com,)ete for stu-dent enrollment ana student retention in amarket which has become increasingly com-plex.

It is recommended that DeKalb Techestablish an on-going sys ni which electro-nically captures student retention data on aquarterly basis. In so doing, student retentioni ates can be observed regularly without engag-ing in the time-consuming methods used inthis study.

Finally, it is recommended thatTech facu!r;, administrators, and staff care-fully consider the student retention ratesfound in this study. Faculty members shouldstudy the specific retention rates related to,:ieir programs and determine appropriate ac-tion which should be taken to increase thepercentages. Since DeKalb Tech programsdiffer in length, content, and student attrac-tion, action which can be beneficial may varyby program as well as by sta,...... Administra-tors should consider the retention rates intheir more global perspectives in order togenerate further curriculum innovations. Stu-dent Services personnel should consider theretention rates in their recruitment, counsel-ing, and advisement efforts, and take actionwhere it can facilitate the academic persis-tence of students.

Together, faculty, administrators, andstaff are charged to establish and to maintain

a rewarding social, psychological, and educa-tioral environment which delivers high qua-lity instruction for students. This studysought to determine how well DeKalb Techretained students in that commitment. IfDeKalb Tech is to continue serving the needsof its constituents and to continue providinggrowth and development for their economicwell-being, the institution must meet thismost profound educatic -al challenge of ourtimes.

REFERENCES

Cohen, E. L. Assessment, advising and earlywarning: Strategies for Improving reten-tion. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa BarbaraCicy College, 1984. (ERIC Document Re-production Service No. ED 243 550)

Johnson, B. E. The DeKalb Tech retentionstudy. Higher Education in r,eorgia: Re-search Needs and Uses in Administration,Proceedings of the 1984 Conference,Athens: Th.! University of Georgia, Insti-tutional Research and Planning, 1985.

Nespor, J.K. and Roueche, S. D. Studyingattrition by stt,dying probation. Austin:The University of Texas, 1983. (ERICDocument Reproduction Service No. ED237 181)

Stetson, N.E. The effect of direct mail andtelephone contacts on the rate of returnof students who drooped out. Fort Lau-derdale, FL: N, i University, 1984.(ERIC Document Reproduction ServiceNo. ED 253 286)

RETENTION ISSUES IN MEDICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION:THE ACADEMIC HEALTH CENTER

jean A. MorseMedical College of Georgia

Retention is a major concern in healthprofessions educational institutions, just as inother postsecondary schools, although attri-tion rates are sometimes lower. At the Med-ical College of Georgia, from the fall of 1982to the fall of 1983, overall retention of thestudent population examined for the Univer-sity System of Georgia's retention study pro-gram was 89.9 percent. For 1983-84, the ratedropp' to 87.8 percent, but rose to 93.75percent ;or 1984-85, the latest year studied.During this three-year period, retention ratesfor black students rose from 77.8 to &5.7 per-cent. At the same time, enrollment of blackstudents increased.

In common with similar academichealth celte13, the ri .?.clical College of Georgia(Mr j t:!;cv sever! : haracteristics that havebe show-, lo be related to retention. Theseinclude:

1. Being a special purpose in ution with aclear!), defined mission (Lenning, Beal andSauer, 1980).

2. Enrolling a large proportion of studentswith nigh aspiration levels (Lenning, Bealand Sauer, 1980). Approximately 52 per-cent of MCG's students are either at thedoctoral level or are studying to becomephysicians or dentists.

3. Having few "special" or transient studentswho likely have little intention of persist-ing. Less than one-half of one percent ofMCG's students fit into this category.Therefore, nearly every student is admitt-ed directiy into a program. There are no"undecided" studentswho may be moresubject to attrition (Astin, 1975).

4. Having a majority of entering studentseither complete undergraduate degrees

84

77

elsewhere prior to entry, or transfer infrom other schools. At MCG, more than95 percent enter after having successfullycompleted some collegiate work else-where.

Further, 94.5 percent of MCG's degree- orcertificate-seeking students are at the(undergraduate) junior level or above.Since attrition is typically higher at theyounger levels (Lenning, Beal and Sauer,1980), having few such students obviouslyallows for higher retention.

On the other hand, we at MCG do notenjoy other characteristics that may facilitateretention. We are neither a private institution,nor are we high-cost. We have few extracurri-cular activities, such as extramural sportsteams, Greek organizations and so forth. Onlyabout 25 percent of our students reside oncampus (though student demand for housingtypically does not exceed supply to any realextent). Some studies have found suchcharacteristics to be associated with higherattrition (Astin, 1980; Lenning, Beal andSauer, 1980).

What Strategies Are Effective?

In preparation for discussing retentionissues in educational programs such as ours, Iinterviewed represent-gives from each of thefour MCG schools offering health professionseducation: Allied Health Sciences, Denistry,Medicine, and Nursing. Each representative isactively involved in retention-related activitiesand could address retention strategies fromboth a current and historical perspective.Table 1 presents an overview of some of thestrategies in use at he present time that areperceive.] by the various representatives asbeing particularly important and/or effec'yein retaining students.

78

Some comments concerning Tabie 1,may be in order. First, there is clear recogni-tion that retention and admissions are interre-lated. Schools that use an extensive interviewprogram believe that doing so not only helpsthem make decisions about whom to admit,but also helps applicants learn about the pro-grams and assess the degree of "match" bet-ween MCG and their own goals and need%The interview system is one expression cfthese Schools' philosophy that, "If we admityou, we expect to graduate you."

Second, most programs are still design-ed for full-time students, and are essentially"lock-step." Typically, each course is offeredonly once each year. Decelerated curricularequire considerable extra effort on the partof faculty (often, on a one-to-one basis), pluscareful advisement from program administra-tors. At prestat, such arrangements are avail-able on a very limited basis

Third, the strategies appearing in Table1 do not represent a comprehensive list. Forexample, financial aid was not mentioned, al-though the services of MCG's Office of Finan-cial Aid are widely viewed by botn facultyand students as highly effective. MCG's Officeof Minority Affairs, which offers counselingand advisement services to minority students,also functions to facilitate retention. Otheroffices, programs, and services could also bementioned.

In addition to the strategies mentionedin Table 1, some MCG Schools enjoy certaincharacteristics or qualities that likely facilitateretention. For example, students enteringthe School of Allied Health Sciences enterdirectly into one of the nearly 30 differentprograms administered through one of ninedepartments. Though the total School en-rollment is approximately 450, enrollment inany given program is mud, smaller. Thus, newstudents go directly into a "home" depart-ment and enroll in relatively small classes inwhich student-student and student-facultyinteraction are greatly facilitated.

Another attractive quality for studentsin both allied health sciences and nursing is

Morse

that their programs are located within an aca-demic health center. With its tremendousarray of clinical activities and patient client-ele, the MCG campus affords a breadth ofopportunities matched by few other healthprofessions education programs in the State.

Some Recurrent Themes

As I discussed retention matters withthese School representatives, several recurrentthemes came up in the conversations. Theseincluded:

1. Retention is important. Applicant poolsfor several of the health professions areshrinking; it's more important than everbefore to retain those we admit.

2. Retention is everyone's responsibilityright down to the individual facultymember and the service staff.

3. There are more retention-oriented strateg-ies and programs in place this year thinlast, and there were more last year thanthe year before. If we can think of some-thing else to do that might work, we'll trythat too.

4. The Minority Advising Program works,and it's a source of pride. It may even behelping us recruit more minority students.

Issues and Concerns

There were some issues and concernsvoiced, too. These included:

1. What will happen to our applicant pools iffinancial aid patterns trend more andmore to loans and away from scholarshipsand "forgiveness" programs? Can weadapt our programs to admit more part-time or nontraditional students? Can weaccommodate increased numbers of stu-dents who MUST c .tine e to be employ-ed? And, what will happen to the demo-graphic makeup (-A the various health pro-fessis ,ns if we--and other health proles-5ions educational programsDON'Taccommodate such students? Will some of

Morse 79

"1" A [II r 1

RETENTION STRATEGIES REPORTED AS EFFECTIVEBY SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVES

STRATEGY: AHS DENT MED NSG

Day-long interview system(as part of admissions process) X X

Decelerated curriculum* X X X X

Early experiences in directpatient care X

"Early warning" system foracademic problems X X X

Minority advising program X X X X

Orientation program for new students X X X X

Prematriculation academic programfor high-risk entering students X X X X

Sophomore advising/"buddy"program X X

Support group for spousesof students X

Tutoring and/or remediation programs X X X X

Using as advisors only those facultywho volunteer X X

*Typically reserved for students having academic difficulty or problems of 'iealth.

re'6l.J

80

the certificate, associate c.legree, andeven baccalaureate degree professions gobegging? Will medicine and denistry beopen only to the wealthy? On the otherhand, is it even feasible to consider ex-tending the curriculum for a programsuch as medicine, which already requiresso many years to complete?

2. In some programs, applicant pools :'re al-ready shrinking to the extent that someof those applicants being admitted onthe "first round" today would haveinprior yearsbeen placed on an "alterna-tive" or "wait" list. In short, a largerproportion of some entering classes arecloser to being minimally rather thanmaximally prepared. As a consequence,such programs are feeling the need forfaculty to increase the amount of timeand effort devoted to academic advisingand to "preventive tutoring." Butfaculty wonder how they can do this andalso respond to increasing pressures topublish, obtain extramural grants, andmaintain clinical skills.

3. Structured programs of career counselingand placement assistance arc rot avail-able at our institution, though most ofthe Schools discuss various career op-tions within the curriculum. Should aformal program of services be establish-ed? Could such a program a>bist studentswho question their career choice to con-sider OTHER health professions o :-dons? Would such services be of signifi-cant help to students who need to "stopout"?

Concerns about retention can bringtogether campus units and service groi.:3 that,all too often, are more separate than united.

Morse

They can .Ise make us more sensitive to stu-dents' and applicants' needs and views. But itis wh_n these concerns lead us to improve ourprograms and services that we can really con-sider retention rates in proper perspectiveasimportant outcome indicators that are pri-marily by-products of those programs and ser-vices.

REFERENCES

Astin, A. W. Preventing Students From Drop-ping Out. Sm.' Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1975.

Astin, A. W. The American Freshman: Na-tional Norms For Fall 1980. WashingtonD. C.: American Council ln Educationand University of California at LosAngeles, 1980.

Beal, P. E., & Noel L. What Works in StudentRetention. Iowa City, Iowa: AmericanCollege Testing Program and NationalCenter for Higher Education ManagementSystems, 1980.

Ewell, P. T. Conducting Student RetentionStudies. Boulder, Colorado: NationalCenter for Higher Education ManagementSystems and The College Board, 1984.

Lenning, 0. T., Beal, P. E., & Sauer, K. Re-tention and Attrition: Evidence forAction and Research. Boulder, Colorado:National Center for Higher EducationManagement Systems, 1980.

Noel, L., Levitz, R , Saluri D., & Associates.Increasing Student Retention. San Fran-cisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985.

87

rnNerpri im AcprrTc ANn PRAcTrAi APPR"ArHESTO STUDENT RETENTION IN HEALTH PROFESSIONS

Freddie S. HepnerArmstrong State College

The School of Health Professions atArmstrong State College offers 12 degrees inhealth professions. As the major suppliers ofhealth professionals in southeast Georgia, weare sensitive to the demands of the consumerfor a knowledgeable practitioner who knowsthe how and what of their respective disci-plines. All programs at Armstrong which canbe accredited by outside agencies are accredit-ed. All programs produce graduates most ofwhom are successful on their first attempt atcredentialing exams. These glowing accom-plishmelts are the results of many hours ofhard work by students and faculty who arecareer-oriented. It is important to know whatthe outcome of the educational process is inhealth professions at Armstrong State Collegefor it is only then one can appreciate thebeginning students. Many of our students be-gin their collegiate careers with the admissionclassification of provisional.

The typical student in health pro-fessions at ASC is nontraditional. Most are 28,have children, work 20 or more hours perweek, live off campus but within 50 miles ofSavannah, and have completed at lust 20hours of core prior to admission to a de-signated health program. More than 80 per-cent receive some form of financial aid andmore than 30 p -ent participated indevelopmental studies programs.

Acknowledging the usefu'ness of in-formation presented heretofore from the research literature, I will limit my remarks inthat area specifically addressing unique needsof the students in health professions. Munro(1980) from nursing, Young and Fellow(1981. from dental hygiene, and Douce andCoates (1984) from spiratory therapy ob-serve that a frequent cause of attrition inthese fields is change in career interest related

81

to inadequate knowledge of the fiel KarenPinter (1983) in a meta-analysis has iaentifiedcharacteristics of health professions studentsthat hinder success as being: (1) inadequatebasic skills, (2) little background in scienceand math, and (3) inability to deal with af-fective problems such as fear and anxiety.Kobland's study substantiates these findingsin that this research suggests that nursing stu-dents are primarily motivated by a desire tohelp peoplea motive which unfortunatelydoes not always coincide with an interest orabilitl in science.

The problem then is magnified, accord-ing to Birnie (1978), when the student'sdevelopmental level is also delayed. v.now-ledge of the scientific process includes theability to ask many questions, challenge thevalidity of unsupported statements, considerall available information when forming con-clusions, report observations, evaluate ideas,and look for inconsistencies. These behaviorsaccording to Piaget would call for the formaloperational stage of cognitive development.

However, research during the lastdecade indicates that delayed cognitivedevelopment is a characteristic of failingstudents, especially in science-related fields.Martin reports that only one-third of thecollege population has reached the formaloperations level and many older females andunderachievers from minority groups will notbe functioning at the formal level in sciencecourses. Science courses form the basicframework upon which all health professionscurricula are built.

Therefore, the typical health pro-fessions students, because of these nontradi-tionzl qualities, enter health programs design-ed to make faiiure inevitable. They may not

82

have mastered many basic skills in studyingmath and science. They may not be function-ing at the cognitive level demanded by thepostsecondary level. Lastly, the role sociali-zation of older southern women does notyield a student who can effectively deal withthe affective problems of fear and anxietywhich interfere with learning and growth.

Karen Pinter (1983) offers five char-acteristics of programs in health professionsthat are responsive to the needs of the healthprofessions students. They are: (a) recogni-tion of the need to offer study/learning skillscourse with content area classes, (b) recog-nize the need for development of cognitiveskillsutilizing instruction strategies that in-volve active learning in problem-solving skills,(c) utilize peer tutoring and small groupstudying, (d) recognize the affective needs ofthe student, and (e) establish close workingrelationships with schools or departmentsfrom which support comes.

There are many concepts that can beused in operationalizing this data. Two pri-mary concepts undergirding our conceptualframework are adult learning concepts andfaculty investment.

Malcom Knowles' (1973) assumptionsabout andragogy or adult education are ofprime importance when interacting with stu-dents in health professions. Students with lifeexperiences are self-directed, self-defined, re-cognize the value of readiness V) learn becauseof a need to know, and are problem- notsubject-oriented. Students in the health pro-fessions are adult learners which places a shar-ed responsibility on faculty and students forinteraction. Beckes (1980) pointed out thatall successful retention programs initiated forhigh risk students have one key characteris-ticfaculty approval and involvement.

In summary then, the health profes-sions student is unique in terms of develop-mental needs and educational support to pre-vent attrition. Useful concepts must not liedormant. Retention must be sold. Marketingof the student's abilities coupled with early

Hepner

and ongoing prescriptive remediation pro-duces success. Faculty support and involve-ment are crucial.

Three years ago the School of HealthProfessions formalized a school-wide com-mittee to address the problem of retention.Attrition in our school was approximately 40percentabout average nationallybut withpleas from institutio._ iho hire health pro-fessionals requesting more graduates and thebudget becoming le-s, we had to do some-thing. Like all prock..tive faculty we formed acommittee. The committee devised a com-puterized survey form to be mailed to all stu-dents who failed to meet progression re-quirements. Variables elicited from the litera-ture are being analyzed to determine if thereis a correlation between the attrition causesverbalized to department heads and that re-ported anonymously. Hopefully, we will alsobe able to provide a prevention program.

Our observed experiences and prelimi-nary data have led us to believe that practicalapproaches to prevent attrition exist. I'd liketo share some of our strategies with youmany are prescriptive in naturei.e. assiststudents already identified as high risk withthe support system and resources to preventattrition. As a practical appruach we havedivided the practical approaches into fourcategories: fiscal support, academic support,adult counseling and feedback, and personalsupport.

Listed below are some strategies usefulin each area.

1. Fiscal support: scholarships solicited byfaculty from agencies, emergency fundsfrom which students can draw.

2. Academic support: faculty advisors, in-structional procedures that utilize groupproblem-solving strategies, no classattendance policy but clinical attendancepolicy, health professions faculty and artsand sciences faculty must communicate.

E,J

Hepner

3. Adult counseling and feedback: faculty asrole models, graduate follow-up surveys,weekly logs for faculty feedback, prescrip-tive remediation.

4. Personal support: peer counseling, cook-outs, tips on surviving as a student and aparent.

REFERENCES

Baj, Pamela. Can the Generic CurriculumFunction for the Returning RN Student?journal of Nursing Education, 1985, 24(2), b9 -71.

Becke3 I. Attracting and Retaining Morerdrsing Students. Nursing & Health Care,19S0, 242-244.

Bit nie, H. H. Identify:rig Affective Goals inScience Educations. Science Teacher,1978, 45, 29-33.

Douce, F.H. and Coates, M.A. Attrition inRespiratory Therapy Education: Causesand Relationships to Admission Criteria.Respiratory Care, 1984, 29 t8), 823-828.

Hilbert, G.A. and Allen, L R. The Effect ofSocial Support on Education Outcomes.journal of Nursing Education, 1985, 24(2), 48-51.

Hudepohl, N.C. and Rud, S.R High Risk Nur-sing Students, Part 2, Establishing A Stu-dent Retention Program. Nurse Educator,Autumn 1984, 19-24.

Knowles, M. The Adult Learner: A NeglectedSpecies. Houston: Gulf Publishing Co.,1973.

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Kobland, J. Research Project: Practical Nurs-ing Licensing Exam Achievement Rela-tionship to Work Performance and Reten-tion. Final Report ERIC Document, NO.ED 074 210.

McDonald, J.M., Collins, R.F. and WalkerR. Success: A Program to Reduce StudentNurse Attrition. Nurse Educator, Winter1983, 17-20.

Munro, B. Dropouts from Nursing Education:path Analysis of A National Sample. Nur-sing Research, 198C, 29, 371-373.

Pascarella, E.R., Terenzini, P.T. and Wolfle,L.M. Orientation to College ,nd FreshmanYear Persistance/Withdrawal Decisions.journal of Higher Education, 1986, 57(2), 155-174.

Pinter, K. Support Systems for Health Pro-fessions Students. journal of NursingEducation, 1983, 22 (6), 232-236.

Reed, S.B. and Hudepohl, N.C. High RiskNursing Students: Emergence of Reme-dial/Developmental Programs. Nurse Edu-cator, Winter 1983, 21-25.

Reed, S.B. and rudepohl, N.C. High RiskStudents Part 3, Evaluating A StudentRetention Program. Nurse Educator,1985, 10 (5), 32-37.

Young, L. and Fellows, A. Dental HygieneStudent Attrition. journal of Dental Edu-caticn, 1981, 45, 357-359.

84

A RETENTION MODEL FOR MINORITY STUDENTSIN ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONS

Lynda D. Woodruff and Delmas J. AllenGeorgia State University

Despite the efforts of mauy govern-mental and private agencies, racial minoritiescontinue to be unde -presented as healthpractitioners in the fields of medical techno-logy, nutrition/dietetics, physical therapy,and respiratory therapy. It is estimated thatminorities represent less than 7 percent ofhealth practitioners in these fields at the na-tional level and less than 5 percent in the rateof Georgia.

Career development literature citesseveral cont7ibuting factors to minorityunderrepresentation in tie health sciencefields. Minority/disadvantaged students tendto make career choices later, have diminishedaccess to career information, have limitedexperiences which prepare them for competi-tion, and generally progress through careerswithout significant role models.

The 20 percent attrition rate, whichexists for minorities enrolled in these fourhealth science fields at Georgia State Univer-sity, is cause for alarm. The reasons for thisattrition are not clear at this time. Heavycourse loads combined with part-time em-ployment and lack of preparation for therigorous academic demands are thought to bethe primary contributors to the problem.

Lack of adequate financla; rez,

has been documented as one of the mostpowerful barriers to minority student successfor decades. The problem appears to be in-tensifying as federal and state funds for edu-cation are deleted. More than 70 percent ofthe students currently using the tutorial ser-vices provided by our program to increase re-tention are employed in part-time jobs. Threeof these students work 30 hours per weekwhile enrolled in 20 quarter hours of course-work.

The College of Health Sciences atGeorgia State University administers a federal-ly-funded project, under the direction of Dr.Lynda D. Woodruff, which addresses the pro-blem of minority underrepresentation in thedepartments of medical technology, nutri-tion/dietetics, physical therapy, and respira-tory therapy. The objectives of the project areas follows: (a) co increase minority/disadvan-taged student applications and enrollment,(b) to reduce minority/disadvantaged studentattrition, and (c) to follow-through of I goalachievement after graduation.

To meet those objectives, a five-stageprogram was designed and implemented in thephysical therapy department of the College ofHealth Sciences in 1977. The program wasexpanded in 1984 to include three additionaldepartments. The five stages of the programare (a) identification, (b) recruitment, (c) en-richment, (d) retention, and (e) goal achieve-ment. Enrichment is a structured six-weekprogram (Summer Enrichment Experience).All other stages are unstructured and ongoingthroughout the academic year.

Identification and RecruitmentLink-ages with feeder institutions are strengthenedby the use of liaison faculty members at eachcampus to target and track prospective appli-cants. A formal group of minority alumniserve as the primary recruitment arm. Refer-rals come from preprofessional programsthroughout the Southeast. A computer sy-stem is used in the tracking of prospectivestudents.

Attention is also given to the admis-sions process. Experimental learning oppor-tunities in the clinical setting are providedprior to admissions because such experiencesoften enhance academic performance.

Woodruff and Allen

Students are assisted in gaining admissions copreprofessional programs designed to enhancebasic skills before entering the GSU program.Admissions personnel are assisted in develop-ing alternative techniques for evaluatingminority and disadvantaged students (i.e.,utilization of data from the Summer Enrich-ment Program in final admissions reviews).

EnrichmentThe Summer EnrichmentProgram (SEP) provides an intense enrich-ment experience for prospective healthscience students.

RetentionA network of support ser-vices are provided. Counseling services includeadvisement and support group sessions at leastfour times each quarter. During these sessionsstudents deal with topics such as survival skillsand resolution of problems contributing toattrition. Tutorial services are available uponrequest. A formal "buddy system" is employ-ed to assign each new minority student to asenior minority student during the new stu-dent's initial enrollment period.

To assist students in identifying sourcesof financial aid, information is collectedabout scholarships, grants, loans, and servicecancelable agreements specific to the fourhealth professions. Students are informedof CASHE, a national computerized financialaid service. A counselor in financial aid hasbeen identified to specialize in funds availablefor health profession majors.

Faculty development seminars and in-formal exchanges aid increased faculty aware-

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ness of the special needs of minority/disad-vantaged students and assist faculty membersin developing and using appropriate instruc-tional strategies. Programs are modified. Forexample, an extended curriculum has beendeveloped for students who demonstrate po-tential in SEP but who have weak admissionprofiles.

Activities are provided to promotefamily support and involvement during allstages of the student's course of study. Famil-ies are introduced to health programdemands, career expectations, and careeropportunities. Instructional materials havebeen specifically designed for families ofminority/disadvantaged students. Universityfaculty or staff serve as contact persons forspecific families and address questions offamily members.

Goal AchievementGoal achievementsupports the student through graduation andthrough the period of preparing for licensureand certification examinations. This stageends when the graduate enters the health man-power pool as a credentialed practitioner. Atthis point the new minority professional is re-cruited lo assist the next group through theacademic program.

During the three years since the pro-ject's expansion, minority student enrollmenthas increased from 20 to 33. This representsan increase from 12.35 percent to 19.07 per-cent of the total number of students enrolledin these programs.

INSTITUTIONAL STUDIES ON RETENTION: A TAXONOMY

Larry G. JonesInstitutional Research and Planning

A quick review of the retention re-search literature reaffirmed a notion that itwould be impossible to summarize all of theinstitutional studies that have been reportedor conducted to examine the issues relate() tostudent retention. The research review didsuggest, however, that there might be someutility in providing a context or frameworkfor understanding, evaluating, and conductinginstitutional studies on student retention. Theresult is this very simple taxonomy of institu-tional studies on retention which may helpyou sort through what you have heard today,or have read about retention studies, or havefound to be true from doing your own re-search. Although the Jones taxonomy maynot withstand careful scrutiny, the intent isnot to focus so much on the classificationscheme as it is to examine or provoke ques-tions about student retention research: thetaxonomy is viewed as the messenger, not themessage. The editorial comments and any im-plicit judgements on retention research inthis presentation, as well as the taxonomy, arematters of opinion and you are invited andencouraged to take any exceptions with themyou wish.

The Jones Taxonomy Of Institutional StudiesOn Retention

The Jones taxonomy of institutionalstudies on retention is a five-level classifica-tion, and proceeds in hierarchical fashionfrom the simple to the complex. Becausecomplexity is multidimensional and a matterof relativity, it must be noted that some ofthe most complicated retention studies havebeen done at the first level of the taxonomy,and some of the simplest studies have beendone at the highest level of the classification.It is also important to recognize at the outsetthat complexity alone does not make a goodretention study. In fact, the more complicat-ed the study becomes the more suspicious one

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might be of its significance for institutionalimplementation. Another important thing tonote about retention studies is that statisticaltechnique, no matter how sophisticated, willnot alone make a retention study complex orgood. Complexity is more likely to be a func-tion of how many variables are being examin-ed, how many and what questions are beingpursued, and how many combinations of vari-ables and questions are incorporated in thestudy. Good retention studies, regardless oftheir location in the taxonomy, are a functionof whether or not they arrufer the questionsbeing studied and whether or not the findingscan be put to use. Assuming that the study isdone well, then the Jones rule for institution-al retention studies that applies at all levels ofthe taxonomy is the simpler thr better.

The classification of retention studiesin this taxonomy is arbitrary, but the researchidentified is representative of the retentionresearch that has been done and should bedone by all institutions. The taxonomy isbased on five sets of retention questionshowmany, how come, why not, how good, andwhat ifretention research should consider. Ifthe taxonomy isn't exactly hierarchical interms of complexity, it is at least chrono-logical in order of a first to last progression ofinstitutional research. For certain, all reten-tion studies begin with questions of howmany.

Now Many

At the first level of the taxonomyare those retention studies aimed at the basicquestion of how many. It is clear that ques-tions of how many are primary to all reten-tion studies and for that reason they may notonly be the first but aLo the most importantinstitutional retention studies conducted. Inroot form, studies of how many are used todetermine how many students enroll, how

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many graduate, how many continue, and howmany withdraw. Variations include how manystudents of a given race, or sex, or degme pro-gram, or other personal characteristics persisto, not. The combinations of subgroups is vir-tually unlimited.

Because it is intuitively obvious that re-tention begins with student recruitment andadmission, the place to begin institutionai re-tention studies is with how many questions ofapplicants. In this instance, the root questionsare how many apply, how many completeapplications, how many fail to completeapplications, how many are accepted, andhow many enroll. Variations include ques-tions of race, sex, degree program, etc., as

well as questions about the source of theapplicants (e.g. how many applicants from aspecific high school, geographic area orsocioeconomic background). Again, an un-limited number of subgroups can be iden-tified, and it is possible to add a few meaning-ful root questions depending on the numberof different applicant categories an institutionrecognizes.

Figures 1 and 2 are illustrative of thematrices that could be built doing how manylevel retention studies. As with all matrixtype output, considerable complexity can beachieved by adding additional variables invarious combinations. The illustrations arenot intended to be all inclusive, of course, butsimply an attempt to represent the type ofquestions that could be included in retentionstudies at this level.

Quite simply, the object of how manystudies is to determine literally how manystudents persist.

How Come

The second level of retention studies inthis taxonomy asks questions of how come.How come studies are really how many stud-ies, but with a different orientation. In thehow many studies, the focus of attention ison what is numerical retention fact. In thehow come studies, the focus is on the reasonswhy the retention facts found in the how

Jones

many studies are true. How come studiestypically seek to determine how many stu-dents left foi what reasons, but studies of thistype should also look for the reasons studentsactually enroll and do persist.

In how come studies, the root ques-tions focus on the reasons students persist ordo not. Some have suggested that there are asmany reasons for students persisting or notpersisting as there are students. But forpurposes of discussion, all of those reasonscan be placed in one or more of three majorgroups of factors influencing student reten-tion: those dealing with individual or personalmatters (personal). those under the control ofthe institution (institutional), and thosegenerally outside the domain of the studentor institution (environmental) (Figure 3).

Perhaps all how come questions dealingwith student attrition or retentionare ulti-mately personal, but among the more com-monly mentioned that are specifically relatedto student characteristics or personal con-cerns are: student ability and academic pre-paration; family reasons, health reasons,financial reasons, student goals, uncertaintyabout major or career, lack of motivation,social reasons, and displeasure with the insti-tutional environment. Institutional character-istics frequently cited as factors in persis-tence include: institutional type, size, andlocation; institutional purpose, programs,policies and procedures; and institutionalpersonnel. Environment?l influences on stu-dent retention include the economy, the jobmarket, peer pressure, career preparation orrequirements, and military opportunities orobligations. How come studies are usuallydirected at determining how important theseand other factors are in student retention forvarious groups of students, as well as, iden-tifying any institutional specific factors whichmight influence retention.

Retention studies examining the per-sonal factors influencing student retentionseem to appear most often in the literature.Some of the findings have suggested areas fordirect institutional intervention, but in otherareas the institution can only provide a

J ones 89

Figure 1

A Simple Matrix of D:-.ta From A How Many Level Study(Admissions Questions)

Variables

Number of Applicants(Freshmen, Transfers, and Other Subgroups)

Completed ApplicationApplied Application Incomplete Accepted Enrolled

SexRaceDegree

ProgramHigh SchoolTransfer

CollegeGeographicLocationSocioeconomic

Background

Figure 2

A Simple Matrix of Data From A How Many Level Study(Matriculated Students)

Variables

Number of Students (By Class or Other Subgroups)

Still NotMatriculated Graduated Enrolled Enrolled

SexRaceDegree

ProgramAgeFull-timePart-timeCommuterSocioeconomicBackground

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supportive role for the student in dealing withthe retention issues. Studies of institutionalfactors suggest that institutional sire, loca-tion, and type may influence retention, butfew institutions would or could change thoseinstitutional characteristics. More researchshould be aimed at institutional purpose, pro-grams, policies, procedures, and the influenceof institutional personnel factors which canbe more directly controlled by the institu-tion. Environmental influences on retentionare important to understand, but primarilyfor the purpose of appropriate reaction ratherthan significant proaction.

Figure 3Factors Influencing Student Persistence

PersonalStudent AbilityAcademic PreparationFamilyHealthFinancialStudent GoalsCareer or Major UncertaintyMotivationSocialDispleasure with Campus Environ-ment

InstitutionalType of InstitutionInstitutional SizeLocation of InstitutionPurposeProgramsPoliciesProceduresPersonnel

EnvironmentalEconomyJob MarketPeer PressureCareer Preparation, RequirementsMilitary Opportunities, Obligations

J ones

Like how many studies, how come stu-dies should examine admissions issues as wellas enrollment issues. While admission sti'diesare typically aimed at competitive marketanalysis, attracting and keeping applicantsmay he more of a retention problem based onnegative feedback from currently enrolledstudents than a matter of discovering ways toexpand the institutional student applicantpool.

There often is a question about thevalidity and reliability of how come studies.Primarily because there is reason to believethat students will give "socially acceptable"reasons for withdrawing (e.g. financial rea-sons family matters, uncertainty ?bout thefuture), or even for attending (good faculty,good programs) college in the first place. Asecond concern with how come studies is thatthey often overlook the fact that the samepersonal, institutional, and envirormental fac-tors that are identified as adversely affectingretention, may also be positive influences instudent retention: institutional size may driveone student away, but attract another.Although they may be just a subset of howcome retention studie>, there appears to bemerit in a set of institutional retention studiesthat examine the reasons more students don'tdrop out. Level 3 institutional retention stu-dies ask why not?

Why Not

If one accepts the premise that all stu-dents face basically the same experiences butreact differently to them, then it is as impor-tant to know as much about the reaction,positive or negative, to an experience as it isto understand the experience itself. As it istrue at most institutions the number of per-sisters is greater than the number of studentswho withdraw, why not studies should ex-plore the reasons most students faced withsimilar personal, institutional, and environ-mental pressures that caused other students towithdraw, did in fact persist. Knowing howpersisting students cope with their problems

C, (-1a .0 0

Luulti suggest pit)grailiS foil helping the drop-outs cope with their problems. On the otherhand, the personal qualities of students whosay "I don't have to put up with this anylonger," and leave might be more in keepingwith what colleges and universities are tryingto develop than the behavior of students whosimply accept the programs, policies, teach-ing, and requirements demanded of them re-gardless of how trivial or how good. Institu-tions may, in fact, better serve students andsociety if more students were encouraged tostop out or drop out. Higher education maynot be the best use of a student's time at agiven period in time. Why retain students whowould be better served somewhere else, doingsomething else. There may be an institutionalobligation to help the student find a betteralternative for his/her time and money. Whynot explore other alternatives for the student?If the institutionor higher educationis notmeeting the needs of the student, why shouldthe student persist? Why not stop out? That50-60 percent of undergraduates will even-tually earn their undergraduate degreesdoesn't really prove that they are getting whatthey want, need, or must have, nor does itprove that they are having a positive exper-ience in the process. The larger issue may notbe how many students are retained orgraduated, but how much good was done forthem in the process.

Ultimately, of course, there needs to baresearchretention research if you willonhow well institutional and individual goals arebeing met. That leads to the next level of theJones taxonomy of institutional studio on re-tention, the how good studies. Two types ofhow good studies are identified in this taxo-nomy, evaluation studies and quality of lifestudies.

In a very real sense, all retention studiesare evaluation studies, because all retentionstudies provide data that is used to evaluateinstitutional success in re-enrolling matricu-lated students and/or in keeping those stu-dents until they graduate. Evaluation research

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in this taAuuurny, however, identifies the STU-dies that are specifically designed to deter-mine how successful institutional programs orpolicies designed to improve retention havebeen. With the exception of some policies orprograms which alter academic probation,dismissal or return from academic suspensionwhere the numbers of students can be moreprecisely determined, measuring the successof programs designed to reduce attrition canbe very frustrating. Assuming that retentionprograms are the result of how come or whynot studies, the retention program objectivesshould be relatively clear at the time the pro-gram is initiated, and when the program ob-jectives are set, measurable outcomes shouldalso be identified. Unfortunately, that is

more easily said than done, particularly be-cause the outcomes of such programsnamelythe numbers of students retained as a result ofthe specific interventionaren't that easy tocount. In fact, it may not be the specifics ofthe program that convinces the student tostay as much as it is the visible evidence thatsomeone at the institution cares about thestudent. It isn't just enough to "retain" thestudent, however, and the institution mustalso be concerned about the quality of thestudent experience the persistor will enjoy.In almost every instance improvement in theintangible "quality of student life" for thosewho persist may be the more significant mea-sure of success than the more tangible mea-sure of the number of students who can beidentified as "saved."

At least as important as studies of pro-gram success are retention studies aimed atmeasuring the quality of life on campus. Justhow good is the experience (life) of the per-sistor? Is anything gained if students are per-sisting in unimaginative, uninspiring, low qua-lity educational experiences? Current stu-dent outcomes research will provide someadditional useful information on the qualityof the student educational experiences, butoutcomes research alone will probably notspeak directly to the experience or processissues in the wality of student or institutionallife crucial to student retention. What isneeded is research that will evaluate the

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educational experience and process itselfthequality of life of the student. In a sense, itmay not be whether you win or lose (out-comes research), but how you play the game(quality of life research) that counts.

What If

The last category in the Jones taxo-nomy of institutional studies on retentionmay only exist in late hour discussions indark, nonacademic settings and, consequent-ly, are not well documented. It would seemthat wider exposure of such ideas could onlylead to more creative retention programs andservices. The retention research in this cate-gory takes its title from the Hewlett-Packardadvertisement, and asks "What If"?

What if retention research may moreappropriatey fit in the taxonomy beforeevaluation research, because it deals with thecreative program solutions which are requiredto respond to the findings of how come andwhy not studies. But, if one considers suchstudies as "reflective," then perhaps they canonly be developed after the findings of theother retention studies have been examined.In any event, there isn't too much in the re-search which tackles head on some of thethings we know about why students drop out,and really explores the consequences ofapplying what we know about retention. Forexample, considerable retention research hasshown that some students are likely to bemore successful than others. What if we onlyadmitted those students who institutional re-tention studies indicated were going to besuccessful? What if we gave a rebate or bonusto program completers? It is said that it costsmore to recruit a student than it does to re-tain him/her. What if we shared that cost sav-ing with the persisting student? What if werequires all students to live on campus? Theretention research suggests that students wholive on campus are more likely to persist thanothers, yet how many institutions have drop-ped underclass housing requirements to retainstudents? What if every faculty member hadfifteen students to call or see every week on apersonal basis, not just as advisors but in moreof a family relationsh'n? We know that stu

dents who are involved in on-campus workhave a higher retention work rate than stu-dents who are not. What if all institutions in-clude on-campus work programs as part oftheir requirements?

Required attitude adjustment. Everyconference has an attitude adjustment hour,but what if all campus personnel were requir-ed to attend a seminar or worksl op wherethey examined their attitudes in terms oftheir job and how they interact with stu-dents? It might be that we need lower reten-tion for some of our clerical people to in-crease our retention of students. What ifgraduation were guaranteed? Isn't the MedicalCollege's assumption that "If we admit you,we expect you to graduate," better than theold admonition given entering students,"Look around yo..:, at the end of the firstquarter the student on your left is going to begone." "Fifty percent of you will not be hereat graduation." What if instead, students weretold, "We are going to do our best to graduateyou." "We may have to work pretty hard at itand we expect you to work pretty hard at it,but we admitted you and that mears we ex-pect to graduate you." Or as a final example,what if we had no retention programs at all?How much has retention research done forthe retention rate over the last 25 years?

Unfortunately, brain storming or "whatif" and "how about" questions don't oftenenough find their way into acti%_, research. Itis included in this taxonomy because it is

considered critical to improving retention andimproving the quality of the educational ex-perience.

There it is, the Jones taxonomy of in-stitutional studies on retention. It was anattempt to quickly and briefly review reten-tion research by identifying the several typesof retention studies that can and have beendone. It was, as Haskin Pounds wanted, anattempt to provoke you with some thoughtsabout institutional studies an retention: notto make you mad, but to stinulate yourthinking about retention research at your ill-stitution.

SACS' EFFECTIVENESS CRITERION: A SELF-ANALYSISBASED UPON THE "MUST" STATEMENTS

Glynton Smith and James E. PratherGeorgia State University

Background, Issues and Purpose

The quality issue in higher educationhas been addressed by national panels, taskforces, and accreditation agencies. Thesegroups have focused frequently on studentassessment and institutional effectiveness.Fincher (1983) reviewed several of these re-ports issued by national commissions and taskforces. A common theme stressed was a desirefor the improvement of academic competenc-ies, although little guidance was offered to in-stitutions in terms of which competenciesneed to be improved and which methodolog-ies should be employed to measure these im-provements. Fincher (p. 29) summarized thiscontradiction as follows:

Thus, little guidance is given in a formthat would facilitate the developmentof academic competencies, their assess-ment or measurement, and the esta-blishment of their curricular or in-structional validity. Virtually no men-tion is given to how students may ac-quire these competencies, whether ornot public school teachers can or willteach such competencies, and themethods by which schools can developsuch competencies effectivr,ly. In brief,national commissions and task forceshave identified a national crisis in edu-cation, but wisely or unwittingly orcynically they have left the problems ofdefinition, measurement, and instruc-tion to the nation's schools and col-leges.

A recent national survey, conducted bythe American Council on Education, showsthat universities are plagued by the same con-tradiction (EI-Khawas, 1986). For instance,many university administrators favor assess-ment, but express uncertainty of how to solve

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the problem of definitions and measurementsof student competencies. There is a wide gapbetween what is judged by numerous univer-sity administrators to be appropriate methodsof assessment and what is actually being used.There tends to be consistency in perceptionson appropriate assessment measures which isinconsistent with the major potential obstacleto implementation which is uncertainty onwhat to evaluate. The complexity of the qua-lity issue at universities is underscored by acareful consideration of these survey results(p. 14-17) and the work of Tan (1986).

The emphasis on student assessmentand institutional effectiveness is readily appar-ent in the new Criteria adopted by the South-ern Association of Colleges and Schools(SACS). The Commission on Colleges ofSACS developed Criteria (December, 1984) toreplace its old Standards. In several years ofcommittee work and discussions with the Col-lege Delegates Assembly, a major issue un-folded on one criterion: institutional effec-tiveness. Many presidents, who generally re-nresent institutions as the voting delegates,recognized the task and expense of attempt-ing to define and measure outcomes validlyand reliably across academic departments, col-leges or institutions. They feared misuse byexternal forces and were unwilling to committheir own institutions to the proposed crite-rion. A compromise was reached which en-tailed the elimination of all twelve referencesto "outcomes" (Rugg, 1984). What 1 emainedunder Section III, Institutional Effectivenessis entitled 3.1 Planning and Evaluation and3.2 Institutional Research. The preface tothose subsections reads as follows:

The quality of education provided bymember institutions is the primary con-sideration in the decision to confer orreaffirm accreditation. The evaluation

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of educational quality is a difficult taskrequiring careful analysis and profes-sional judgment. Traditionally, accredi-tation has focused attention almost ex-clusively upon institutional resourcesand processes. It has usually beenassumed that, if an institution has cer-tain resources, effective education willoccur. A comprehensive approach toaccreditation, however, takes into ac-count not only the resources and pro-cesses of education (such as faculty andstudent qualification, physical plant,fiscal resources and other elementsaddressed in the Criteria) but also theevaluation of the results of educationand plans for the improvement of theinstitution's programs.

The level of institutional quality de-pends not only on an institution's edu-cational processes and resources butalso on the institution's successful useof those processes and resources toachieve established goals. Institutionshave an obligation to all constituents toevaluate effectiveness and to use the re-sults in a broad-based, continuousplanning and evaluation process (p. 9).

The purpose of this paper is to describehow one state university is approaching thenew SACS' expectation on "institutional ef-fectiveness." The paper presents (a) an effec-tiveness process model developed by one self-study committee; (b) a matrix of effective-ness-related "must" statements underlying thecriteria; and (c) a description of the involve-ment of an office of institutional research.The material presented is currently beingtested by an on-going self-study activitywhich includes 150 internal committee mem-bers and all organizational units.

An Effectiveness Process Model

Historically, academic enterpreneurialspirit is one of the principal reasons for therapid growth and development of some insti-tutions. Under this concept, each academic or

Smith and Prather

other budgetary unit has been responsible im-plicitly for the development of its own effec-tiveness process that is consistent with itsown statement of purpose/mission. Perhapsthis accounts for the estimation that less than5 percent of the colleges and universities inthe South utilize an institutional planningprocess which could be described as having asignificant impact on institutional decisionmaking (Nichols and Clark, 1983).

From the SACS' viewpoint, thereshould be relative consistency/coherence inthe process throughout an institution whichcould hardly occur withotA systematic insti-tutional planning tied to decision making. Thecriterion states that an effective institutionmust establish adequate procedures for plan-ning and evaluation. It must define expectedresults (goals) and describe how the achieve-ment of these results (goals) will be ascertain-ed. The criterion emphasizes procedure, andprocess, but does not define the nature of theprocedure or process. It does not define thenature of the institutional purpose/mission,the institutional plans, institutional expecta-tions/goals and evaluative procedures, all ofwhich may vary by institution. A written uni-fied institutional plan is not required by thecriterion, neither is a planning officer, nor anoffice of institutional research/planning. Insti-tutions have an o ?portunity to use their owncreativity in responding to the accreditinggroup. The flexibility provided is advanta-geous to institutions particularly in an era offinancial constraints.

What then does SACS require of its700-member postsecondary education institu-tions? An attempt to answer that question atone institution produced the effectivenessprocess model shown in Figure 1. The 'iodelshows the relationships among the elementsinvolved under the SACS' criterion in the in-stitutional effectiveness process. A similarprocess is involved for the various subparts ofthe organization.

The effectiveness questions raised bythe Criteria seem quite repetitive. The same

Smith and Prather 95

Figure 1

EFFECTIVENESS PROCESS

-4 EXPECTATIONS < ) ASSESSMENT (--

1:OPERATION/ <IMPLEMENTATION

idea is expressed and the same material is

asked for under other sections of the docu-ment. In every case, it seems, the first ques-tion seeks some statement of the institutionalexpectations for that area. The second ques-tion seems, almost invariably, L. be about as-sessment. How, given these expectations orgoals, does the 1 stitution assess the extent towhich expectat: ins are being met? The thirdquestion, then, asks how this assessment in-formation is used to modify the institution'splanning for that aspect of its operation. Andlast, although it is not asked explicitly everytime, the implication is that the institutionshould be able to provide some evidence thatthese plans are, in fact, being implemented.

"Must" Statements

Underlying Section III, InstitutionalEffectiveness, are the "must" statements. Ifan institution is to be reaccredited, the SACS'visitation team must answer affirmatively thegroup of effectiveness-related statements, notlimited to Section III, provided in Figure 2.The visitation team evaluates each statementfrom the viewpoint of the whole institution.Since any college or university is the sum ofits component parts, principal administratorshave been asked to consider these effectivestatements. The matrix provides an internalscore card for a self-analysis of the entire uni-versity. The matrix stimulates communicationand cooperation which, in turn, lead to a selfcorrecting process.

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PLAN (.._.

A steering committee of the self-studyreviewed the Criteria and Manual prepared bythe Commission on Colleges and found thatinformation must be obtained from all unitsof the university. A worksheet, designed andwritten by SACS (1985) for use of the visitingcommittee, was modified to obtain the an-swers needed on effectiveness for nine self-study committees in writing their reports. Theworksheet is being used as an educational, aswell as an information gathering process. SeeTable 1. Respondents were asked to docu-ment a "yes" answer on the worksheet. Inareas where "no" was indicated the respon-dents were asked "to consider what actionsneed to be taken within your area and includethese as recommendations." Obviously, anydeficiencies found will be corrected if possibleprior to the SACS visitation with faculty andadministrators working in tandem.

Institutional Research Involvement

Most SACS self-studies provide op-portunity, challenge, and visibility for anoffice of institutional research. The reportsissued illustrate institutional study effortsunder Criterion 3.2.

As one institution enters into its self-study for a visitation in 18 months, theinvolvement of an office of institutionalresearch, thus far, has entailed:

1. The Director serves as the resource mem-ber of the Effectiveness Committee.

QK Cmith and Prather

Table 1

Institutional Effectiveness-Related "Must" Statement Matrix

Each question answered by each administrator withfollowing code: 1 = yes, 2 = no, 3 = not applicable

Questions Principal Administrators

I. Master plan for phys. & ed. growthII. Planning & eval. processes demonstrate purpose

and role being fulfill&III. Procedures for planning and evaluation

Defines expe-Aed educational resultsDescription of how achievement of results

will be ascertainedIf maintains research or public service missions,

it develops and implements appropriate proce-dures for evaluation etfectiveness

Shows evidence of research designed to supportits planning and evaluation functions

Uses research function for continuing study,analysis, appraisal of programs, policies, proce-dures and programs

Regularly evaluates research functionIV. Regularly evaluates admissions policies

Defines process by which curriculum establishedProcess established to improve instructionGoals of each course understood by faculty and

studentsEvaluations of students re: quality levels of performancePeriodically studies effectiveness of instr.Grad. instruction evaluated and results usedContinuing education goais establishedEvaluation of off-campus classesAssignment of faculty responsibilitiesEvaluation of individual faculty membersGuidelines for evaluating facultyMeasure performance against criteriaOrientation, etc. of part-time facultyOrientation, etc. of GTAs

V. Evaluation of library programsEvaluation of cooperative library arrangementsEvaluation of s.udent development services

VI. Resources used to achieve goalsEvaluates effectiveness of administratorsSound budget processesPlan for upkeep of propertyAnnual plan for upkeep of propertyMaintains and evaluates safety planFacilities master plan

Vice President Academic AffairsVice President Fin. AffairsVice President Inst. Advanc.Vice President PlanningVice President ResearchEirector of AdmissionsDean of StudentsDirector of Cont. Ed.LibrarianRegist,arAcademic Deans

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Smith and Prather

2. The Director and Assistant Director havebeen called on as consultants in survey de-signs.

3. A catalog of institutional research reporttitles over the past five years along withother informational sources has beenformulated and grouped by the newCriteria. This catalog was distributedthrough the Self-Study Office to theSteering Committee members and Chair-man of other Self-Study Committees.

4. Annual publications of the office havebeen called for and provided to the samedistribution shown above. These includeda five-year series of Abstracts of Institu-tional Research and the Fact Book.

5. Two staff papers have been written asbackground to members of the Effective-ness Committee: one on planning withinthe State system of higher education andthe other or student assessment and in-stitutional effectiveness.

6. An institutional environmental analysishas been completed and a student demo-graphic study is underway.

Certainly, any institution which haslade a commitment to the establishment of

an an-going institutior.al research function isin a good position to answer in the affirmativethe "must" statements under Criterion 3.2.SACS does not mandate an office, but it doesdo so for the function (Jones, 1986).

Implications

The quality issue in higher educationhas been recognized and acted upon by theCollege Delegate Assembly of SACS. H.R.Kells (1986) judges the establisNment of theeffectiveness criterion to be an extremely im-portant action for higher education in theSouth. He believes that by this action "SACSwill also have an effect on all of U.S. accredit-ing, and, through it all U.S. higher educationinstitutions" (p. 4).

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Some institutions in the South will em-brace genuinely the planning and evaluationexpectations promulgated by SACS and retaincontrol of their own destinies. Others will givetoken attention by generating outdated plan-ning concept documents of the 60's. Un-doubtedly, increased expectations of system-atic planning and evaluation by externalforces will increase tension among and withincolleges and universities, but this could resultin positive change. Barbe and Sullivan (1982)summed up the planning dimensions in acollegiate environment:

If faculty and chairmen focus theirplanning efforts on courses and curri-culum, if academic deans and admini-strators plan the academic policies thatwill be successful in the complex en-vironment of the 1980's and 1990's, ifgovernors plan for insuring that the pub-lic trust of higher education is well-placed, then the dimensions of planningwill be addressed. If the groups involv-ed in planning interact with dignity anddirection, then the enormous educa-tional issues of this decade will becomemanageable. (p. 286)

REFERENCES

Barbe, R.H., & Sullivan, M.M. Removing themystique surrounding academic planning.Research in Higher Education, 1982, 16,283-286.

EI- Khawas, E. Campus trends, 1986 (HigherEducation Panel Report No. 73). Wash-ington, DC: American Council on Educa-tion, 1986.

Fincher, C. Today's problems and yesterday'ssolutions. [roceedings of the 1983 Con-ference on Higher Education ;n Georgia.Athens: University of Georgia, Institu-tional Research and Planning, 1983,27-31.

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Jones, L.G. The implications of new SACScriteria for institutional research.Proceedings of the 1986 Conference onHigher Education in Georgia. Athens:University of Georgia, Institute ofHigher Education, 1986, 59-63.

Kells, H.R. Institutional effectiveness crite-rion called 'extremely important' forhigher education. Proceedings of theSouthern Association of Colleges andSchools, 1985, 38, 4-7.

Nichols, J.0., & Clark, S.B. The impact onplanning throughout the South of theproposed changes in criteria for accre-ditation by the Commission on Col-leges, Southern Association of Collegesand Schools (SACS). Paper presented atthe 18th Annual International Con-ference of the Society for College andUniversity Planning, July 1983, NewOrleans, LA.

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Smith and Prather

Rugg, E.A. The criteria applied to a college intransition: Fallacious thinking aboutoutcomes assessment. Paper presentedat the Conference of Academic Deansof the Southern States, December1986, Atlanta, GA.

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.Criteria for accreditation: Commissionon Colleges. Atlanta: 1984a. & 1984b.

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.Worksheet for the required statementsof the Criteria for accreditation: Com-mission on Colleges, 1985. (Availablefrom Commission on Colleges, South-ern Association of Colleges andSchools, 795 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta,GA 30365).

Tan, D.L. The assessment of quality in highereducation: A critical review of the liter-ature and research. Research in HigherEducation, 1986, 24, 223-265.

STUDENT RETENTION AS A MEASUREOF INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

Harry Cartervice President for Academic Affairs

and Acting PresidentGeorgia Southern College

Based on experiences at Georgia South-ern over the past four years, I believe that re-tention can be used as a goal for strengtheningand/or implementing basic programs whichare essential features of a quality educationalexperience for students.

It has been a tradition at GeorgiaSouthern to have an opening faculty meetingfor the fall quarter on the Friday prior toclasses beginning. At this faculty meeting thepresident traditionally gives a state of the col-lege address. As acting president this year, itwas my responsibility to give this state of thecollege address. In a decision to depart fromthe normal speech, the upcoming 1986-87academic year was the topic. Georgia South-ern was faced with a 10.5 percent enrollmentincrease this fall; however, few additionalresources were provided to support that kindof increased enrollment.

Five goals were outlined for GeorgiaSouthern to accomplish during the academicyear. One of those goals was: "In the midstof increasing enrollment . . .(to renew) ourcommitment to provide for every student anexcellent educational opportunity in a com-fortable environment with quality supportservices. At Georgia Southern we have had adistinguished history in this area. However, itis critical for our students and for the longterm health of the institution that we shouldaccomplish this goal this year." A verycrowded situation would exist, particularlyfor the fall. Student housing would be full.Classes would be full. Office, classroom, andstudent activity space would be very scarce.In this type of environment the faculty werechallenged to exhibit empathy or concern, to

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be very sensitive to the individual differencesof our students, our staff, and our faculty.

Universities and colleges are in a com-petitive environment for the limited numberof students. For this reason higher educationmust continue to be concerned about stu-dents' assessment of their educationalexperiencenot just Georgia Southern, but allinstitutions. This does not mean, however,that we have to sacrifice academic standardsto make our students happy. And highereducation must guard against technology re-placing concern for students. Concern for stu-dents has been an important factor fornumber of years at Georgia Southern; how-ever, the retention question is refocusing ourconcern for students.

The University System's requirementfor retention studies forced Georgia Southernto examine where we were in 1982-83.During the summer of 1983 a joint retreatwas sponsored by the University System foracademic deans and department heads. LeeNoel made a presentation on retention whichincluded the results of a national retentionstudy which was supported by ACT andNCHEMS and published in 1978. Followingthat meeting we realized that the 60 percentretention rate at Georgia Southern was belowthe average for our type of institution. Thisretention rate was based on first-time, full-time freshmen. This finding was a disappoint-ment because we felt that our institution wasdoing well in the area of retention. It must beadmitted, however, that previously we did notreally know what our retention rates were nordid we know how they compared with na-tional data.

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100 Carter

To im-rease retention, action taken inthe 1983-84 academic year involved the fol-lowing steps. First, we educated our facultyand staff regarding our own institutionalnumbers, relationship to the national data,and what factors research showed were rela-tive or significant in retention or attrition. Atask force to study retention and to make re-commendations to be implemented for thefall of 1984 was established. The importanceof teaching was cnntinualry emphasized andtwo institutional faculty awards for excel-lence in the area of contributions to instruc-tion were developed. Finally, additional in-centives for faculty working in our academicadvisement center were provided as well asoutstanding advisors being nominated for re-gional and national recognition.

As a result of the task fcrce recom-mendations, the following actions were taken.The faculty development committee sponsor-ed a workshop on advising and retention. TheACT evaluation surveys were administeredand used as a follow-up to these workshops.An academic intervention program was im-plemented to assist highest-at-risk students,primarily freshmen in academic difficulty.New freshmen on academic probation wouldfollow these regulations: (a) enrollment in athree-hour, four-credit study skills course in-volving time management and other concepts,(b) reduction of class load to no greater than13 hours, (c) regular meetings with their aca-demic advisors. Finally, placetncnt criteria forentering freshmen for the areas of mathe-matics and English were amended.

These actions were not fully imple-mented until the fall of 1984. Retention ratesfor first-time, full-time freshmen over a threeyear period are as follows: 1982-83, 60 per-cent retention; 1983-84, 60 percent retention;1984-85, 66 percent retention. Actions takenin 1984 resulted in a 6 percent retention in-crease of new first-time, full-time freshmen.

Secondly, research studies do notindicate an institution with a high retentionrate is therefore an institution of high quality.

Dr. Patrick Terenzini points out the inabilityto explain more than 40 percent variance instudent attendance patterns. Retention is

obviously a complex phenomena to explain.The Georgia Siuthern experience is not aformal study; however, our experienceindicates that improving retention rates areperhaps an indicator of a healthy, positiveattitude toward students, towards faculty,and towards the teaching/learning process.

Two recent works identify characterist-ics of quality or excellence in institutions:first, Peters and Waterman's, In Search ofExcellence, regarding the private sector, andSearching for Academic Excellence, regardinghigher education. In the first study, Petersand Waterman attempted to answer the ques-tion: What do successful companies do right?Of the ten factors that the authors found,four have important implications for highereducation and retention:

1. Successful companies stay close to theircustomers paying close attention toproduct quality.

2, They engage in hands-on management andtreat employees as people, not workers.

3. They stick to their "knitting," they donot diverse into businesses that they donot know how to run.

4. Finally, they remember that productivitycan only be achieved through people.

The parallel study in higher educationinvolved twenty institutions and identifiedten factors that make up excellence whichwere present in at least 75 percent of thetwenty institutions. The three important onesare: (a) teamwork, or getting into the endzone, (b) room for individual initiative, and(c) exhibiting a genuine concern for studentsand faculty (in the study called campuseswith "heart").

Both studies, the one in the private sec-tor and the one in higher education, identify a

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Carter

concern for customers or students and aconcern for employees, faculty and staff. Thisconcern agrees with the top five positivecharacteristics that were identified by Noeland Beal in their study published in 1980.These characteristics of higher education in-stitutions were: (a) a caring attitude of thefaculty and staff, (b) high quality of teaching,(c) adequate financial aid, (d) student in-volvement in campus life, and (e) a high qua-lity of advising.

In reviewing the new SACS Criteria forAccreditation, retention per se is not men-tioned. The Criteria stresses the quality of theacademic program, the quality of teaching,advising, and other components which relateto concern for the students.

Finally, good retention statistics are aby-product of the efforts of our educationalinstitutions to pay close attention to ourcustomers and to the quality of our product.

In closing:

Isn't it strange that princes and kingsand clowns that caper in saw-dust rings

and common folks like you and me,are builders of eternity.

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To each is given a bag of tools,a shapeless mass, and book of rules,

and each must make ere life has flowna stumbling block or a stepping stone

To the extent that we build stepping stones inour institutions of higher education, retentionstatistics will take care of themselves.

REFERENCES

Beal, P.E. and Noel, L. What Works in Stu-dent Retention. Iowa City, IA and Boule-er, CO: ACT/NCHEMS, 1979.

Gilley, J.W., Fulmer, K.A., and Reithlings-hoefer, S.J. Searching for Academic Ex-cellence: Twenty Colleges and Universitieson the Move and Their Leaders. NewYork: MacMillian Publishing Co., 1986.

Peters, T.;., and Waterman, R.H., J r. InSearch of Excellence: Lessons from Amer-ica's Best-run Companies. Nzw York:Harper and Row, 1982.

Southern Association of College and Schools.Criteria for Accreditation: Commission onColleges. Atlanta: 1984a and 1984b.

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APPENDIX A

"ASSESSING THE INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF STUDENT RETENTION"

Fourth Annual Conference on Research in Postsecondary Education

GEORGIA CENTER FOR CONTINUING EDUCATIONUNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

ATHENS, GA 30602

DECEMBER 1-2, 1986

Sponsored by:

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIAInstitute of Higher Education

Center for Continuing EducationOffice of Institutional Research and Planning

in cooperation withTHE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA

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HIGHLR EDUCATION IN GEORGIA:"Assessing the Institutiona! Effectiveness of Student Retention"

Monday, December 1st

12:00 1:00 p.m. Registration

1:00 2:00 p.m. Opening Session: Cameron Fincher, Presiding

'What Research Tells Us About Student Retention"

Patrick TerenziniInstitute of Higher Education

2:00 S:00 p.m. Claire Swann, ChairPanel: Where the Problem Begins

"The Expectations of Entering Freshmen"

Tom RedmonSouthern Association of Independent Schools

"Getting Students Ready for College"

Joe MarksSouthern Regional Education Board

"Entrance Requirements That Make Sense"

Nathaniel Pugh, Ir.Georgia Southern College

3:00 - 3:15 p.m. Break

3:15 4:15 p.m. Mike McCord, ChairSpecial Problems in Technical Education:

"Problems in Defining Retention State-wide"

Fred KiehleState Board of Postsecondary Vocational Education

"Another State's Perspective in Technical Students"

Diana JosephGreenville Technical College

"The Special Problems of Retaining Technical Students"

Jennifer Cop linSavannah Technical School

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4:15 - 5:00 p.m. Larry J ones, ChairPanel Discussion: Retention Programs That Work

Fran RauschenbergUniversity of Georgia

John SallstromGeorgia College

5:00 p.m. Conference Recess

6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, December 2nd

8:15 - 9:00 a.m.

Dinner Session: Herman Smith, Presiding

"Principles of Learning and Development: Can They Help?"

Cameron FincherInstitute of Higher Education

Morning Session: Le-Quita Booth, Presiding

"Placement and Retention in Remedial Programs"

Ansley A. AbrahamSouthern Regional Educational Board

9:00 - 10:00 a.m. Louise Tomlinson, ChairPanel: Effectiveness in Student Retention

"Factors Influencing Retention in PrivateFour-Year Colleges"

Willisia HolbrookWake Forest University

"Programs That Work in Priva+e Two-Year Colleges"

Ron WeitmanTruett-McConnell College

"Rates of Retention in Technical Programs"

Berman JohnsonDeKalb Technica. Jchool

10:00 a.m. Break

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10:15 - 11:00 a.m. Libby Morris, ChairSpecial Issues in the Health Professions:

"Conceptual Aspects and Practical Approaches"

James RapellaArmstrong State College

"Retention Models for Minority Studer,

Delmas AllenGeorgia State University

"Retention Issues in Medical and Health Education"

Jean MorseMedical College of Georgia

11:00 - 12:00 p.m. Haskin Pounds, Chair"Institutional Studies on Retention"

Larry JonesInstitutional Research/University of Georgia

Glynton SmithInstitutional Research/Georgia State University

12:00 p.m. Luncheoi. Session: Nathaniel Pugh, Presiding

"Student Retention As a Measure of Institutional Quality"

Harry CarterVice President for Academic Affairs

and Acting PresidentGeorgia Southern College

Wrap-Up

Patrick TerenziniInstitute of Higher Education

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